COTTON 

THE    UNIVERSAL    FIBER 


COTTON 

THE  UNIVERSAL  FIBER 


A    SURVEY     OF    THE    COTTON     INDUSTRY 
FROM     THE    RAW    MATERIAL    TO    THE 
FINISHED  PRODUCT,  INCLUDING  DE- 
SCRIPTIONS OF  MANUFACTURING 
AND   MARKETING    METHODS 
AND    A    DICTIONARY    OF 
COTTON   GOODS 

By 

W.  D.  DARBY 


NEW   YORK 
DRY     GOODS     ECONOMIST 

TWO   THIRTY    NINE   WEST   THIRTY -NINTH  STREET 

1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1922 
DRY  GOODS  ECONOMIST 

MAIN  LlBMRY~-AQtt!CUL.TUHtB 


FEDERAL  PRINTING  Co.,  NEW  YORK 
1922 


CONTENTS 


AN   INTRODUCTION.     By  Ernest   C.   Hastings,   Managing   Editor,   Dry 

Goods  Economist 6 

CHAPTER  I — HISTORY  AND  DISTRIBUTION  OF  COTTON 7 

CHAPTER  II — THE  COTTON  CROP 12 

CHAPTER  III — MARKETING  THE  CROP  17 

CHAPTER  IV — A  GREAT  INDUSTRY 22 

CHAPTER  V — THROUGH  THE  SPINNING  MILL 28 

CHAPTER  VI — FROM  YARNS  TO  GRAY  GOODS 33 

CHAPTER  VII — THE  BASIC  WEAVES 38 

CHAPTER  VIII — FINISHING  PROCESSES 42 

CHAPTER  IX — FROM  MILL  TO  RETAIL  STORE 46 

CHAPTER  X — DICTIONARY  OF  COTTON  GOODS 52 

TWELVE  ILLUSTRATIONS 


500093 


An  Introduction 

THE  DRY  GOODS  ECONOMIST  presents  this  little  book  to 
the  public  and  to  the  trade  believing  that  it  fills  a  long 
felt  want.     Letters  have  come  to  us  for  years  asking 
for  such   a  work,  but  not  until  recently  have  we  had  the 
information  necessary  to  give  a  comprehensive  yet  condensed 
story  of  cotton — its  history,  its  production  and  the  final  form 
in  which  it  reaches  the  consumer. 

Those  whose  interest  is  confined  to  the  use  of  cotton  will 
gain  greater  pleasure  from  their  cotton  clothing  when  pos- 
sessed of  the  knowledge  contained  in  the  pages  that  follow. 

The  student  of  textiles  will  find  the  facts  as  presented  a 
veritable  mine  of  information.  Few  books  of  any  size  contain 
so  much  authoritative  data  as  has  been  assembled  herein. 

The  teacher  of  textiles  will  use  this  little  book  to  make 
assignments  for  research  into  the  various  branches  of  the 
cotton  industry  because  of  the  vast  number  of  suggestions 
found  in  these  pages. 

The  buyer  of  cotton  in  any  of  its  stages  will  find  his 
work  more  interesting  and  more  profitable  after  a  reading  of 
"Cotton— The  Universal  Fiber." 

-  Briefly,  this  book  has  been  written  by  Mr.  Darby  in  a 
simple,  plain,  easily  understood  way,  void  of  those  technical- 
ities which  make  so  many  books  of  this  nature  such  dry 
reading. 

We  cannot  recommend  the  book  too  highly  to  all  those  who 
would  know  more  about  the  fiber  that  enters  so  largely  into 
our  lives  from  birth  to  death. 

And  the  value  of  the  book  isn't  limited  to  the  pages  that 
tell  the  story  of  cotton.  The  dictionary  of  cotton  terms  in 
the  back  is  the  best  we  have  ever  seen.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  is  more  than  a  dictionary.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  an 
encyclopedia,  giving  not  only  the  definitions  of  the  terms 
listed  but  some  description  of  how  the  merchandise  repre- 
sented by  the  terms  is  made  or  manufactured,  and  often 
even  telling  the  uses  of  the  goods  described. 

Therefore,  let  us  again  emphasize  that  it  is  with  pleasure 
the  DRY  GOODS  ECONOMIST  offers  this  work  to  you.  May 
your  pleasure  and  interest  in  reading  the  book  be  as  great 
as  was  ours  and  Mr.  Darby's  during  the  many  months  spent 
in  searching  for,  assembling  and  condensing  the  facts  neces- 
sary to  make  up  a  really  worthwhile  book  on  "Cotton — The 
Universal  Fiber." 

ERNEST  C.  HASTINGS, 

Managing  Editor, 
DRY  GOODS  ECONOMIST. 


COTTON 

THE     UNIVERSAL    FIBER 


CHAPTER  I 
HISTORY  AND  DISTRIBUTION  OF  COTTON 

COTTON  has  been  frequently  and  aptly  called  the  fabric  of 
civilization.     There   is   perhaps   no    other   single  commodity 
that  has  had  such  a  determining  effect  on  the  world's  history. 
It  has  played  its  part  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  many  nations.    It  has 
helped  to  bring  civilization  and  prosperity  to  many  peoples.    It  has 
been  a  pioneer  in  opening  the  channels  of  international  trade  and 
laying  the  foundations  of  modern  industry.     Its  influence,  reaching 
down  from  the  dawn  of  history,  has  spread  into  every  corner  of 
the  modern  world. 

The  origin  of  cotton  is  lost  in  the  dim  mists  of  prehistoric  legend. 
Probably  it  was  first  known  and  used  in  India.  Certainly  it  is  in 
Indian  literature  that  the  earliest  mention  of  it  is  found.  References 
to  the  manufacture  of  cotton  into  cloth  are  found  in  the  historic 
"Rig  Veda,"  written  about  3400  years  ago.  In  one  of  the  sacred  books 
of  the  Hindus,  written  about  2700  years  ago,  we  find  cotton  men- 
tioned frequently  under  the  name  of  Kurpas  or  Kupas,  a  name  by 
which  it  is  still  known  in  India.  Just  when  and  how  the  uses  of 
cotton  were  first  discovered  it  is  impossible  to  say;  but  we  know, 
at  least,  that  it  was  being  manufactured  into  cloth  fully  1500  years 
before  the  opening  of  the  Christian  era. 

For  many  centuries  thereafter  there  is  no  record  that  would 
enable  us  to  trace  the  progress  of  cotton.  It  is  probable  that  cotton 
cloths  from  India  gradually  found  their  way  into  the  marts  of  Persia, 
Arabia,  Palestine  and  Egypt  in  very  early  times.  The  Bible  makes 
reference  to  "white  and  violet  colored  cottons"  in  the  description 
of  the  Palace  of  Shushan  in  the  Book  of  Esther,  and  frequent  refer- 
ences to  cotton  occur  in  the  works  of  Strabo,  Herodotus,  Nearchus, 
Arrian  and  other  Greek  writers.  Cotton  goods  imported  from  India 

[7] 


Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 


were  used  by  the  noble  families  of  the  Roman  Empire,  who  also 
borrowed  from  the  Orient  the  custom  of  using  striped  cotton  awnings 
to  protect  themselves  from  the  sun.  By  the  opening  of  the  Christian 
era  the  import  trade  in  cotton  goods  from  India  to  Asia  Minor,  Africa 
and  Southern  Europe  had  grown  to  large  proportions. 

Later  the  trade  spread  all  over  Europe  and  helped  to  build  up 
the  wealth  and  power  of  the  great  mercantile  cities  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  such  as  Venice  and  Genoa.  Although,  during  the  early  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  era,  the  manufacture  of  cotton  goods  had 
grown  to  be  an  important  industry  in  the  cities  of  Asia  Minor,  there 
is  no  record  of  cotton  manufacture  in  Europe  until  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, when  the  Moorish  chieftain,  Abdurrahman  the  Great,  intro- 
duced both  the  growing  of  cotton  and  the  manufacture  of  cotton 
cloth  into  southern  Spain.  The  rest  of  Europe,  however,  continued 
to  import  its  cottons  from  Asia  until  the  fifteenth  century,  when 
the  conquest  of  Constantinople  by  the  Mohammedans  cut  off  the 
trade  routes  between  Europe  and  the  East. 

In  search  of  a  new  road  to  India,  Columbus  sailed  westward 
from  Spain  and  Vasco  da  Gama  sailed  eastward  from  Portugal. 
Rounding  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  Vasco  da  Gama  reached  the  Indian 
port  of  Calicut  or  Calcutta,  from  which  we  get  the  word  calico. 
Thereafter  cargoes  from  India,  instead  of  coming  through  the  Red 
Sea  and  enriching  the  ports  of  the  Mediterranean,  came  around  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  enriched  the  ports  of  western  Europe,  par- 
ticularly of  England. 

In  England  the  importation  of  cotton  goods  from  India  grew  to 
such  large  proportions  that  an  Act  of  Parliament  was  passed  for- 
bidding the  use  of  cotton  either  for  clothing  or  for  household  pur- 
poses, because  the  popularity  of  cotton  cloths  threatened  the  ruin 
of  the  English  wool  industry.  It  is  a  peculiar  historical  coincidence 
that  cotton  goods  should  eventually  become  a  leading  item  in 
England's  export  trade  and  that  India  should  become  the  best 
customer  for  English  cotton  goods. 

Meantime,  Columbus,  in  his  search  for  India,  had  discovered  the 
New  World.  He  noted  that  cotton  grew  in  the  West  Indies  and  was 
made  into  cloth  by  the  natives.  Later  Magellan,  on  his  way  around 
the  world,  found  the  natives  of  Brazil  using  cotton  as  stuffing  for 
their  beds.  Cortez,  on  invading  Montezuma's  kingdom  of  Mexico, 
discovered  that  the  natives  made  beautiful  and  richly  colored  cotton 
fabrics,  some  of  which  he  thought  worthy  of  sending  home  as 
presents  to  the  Emperor  of  Spain.  We  have  no  means  of  knowing 


History  and  Distribution  of  Cotton 


at  how  early  a  period  the  manufacture  of  cotton  goods  was  first 
started  on  the  American  continent,  but  archeological  researches 
have  disclosed  that  the  Incas  had  been  skilled  in  the  weaving  and 
dyeing  of  fine  cotton  fabrics  probably  for  centuries  before  Pizarro 
set  foot  in  Peru. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  cotton  was  cultivated  or  manufactured 
into  cloth  in  what  is  now  the  United  States  before  the  coming  of 
the  English  colonists.  In  a  tract  called  "A  Declaration  of  the  State 
of  Virginia,"  published  in  London  in  1620,  cotton  wool  is  mentioned 
as  one  of  the  products  of  the  Colony  of  Virginia ;  but  this  was 
probably  wild  cotton.  According  to  "Purchas's  Pilgrims,"  "cotton 
seeds  were  first  planted  as  an  experiment  in  1621."  At  first  the 
seeds  were  imported  from  the  West  Indies  and  the  Levant.  By  the 
time  of  the  Revolution  cotton  was  being  grown  on  a  fairly  large 
scale  in  the  southern  colonies,  but  chiefly  for  home  consumption. 
A  review  of  cotton  cultivation  in  the  United  States,  written  in  1832, 
says  that  "previous  to'  the  year  1790  North  America  did  not  supply 
England  with  a  single  pound  weight  of  cotton."  It  was  not  until 
after  the  Revolution  and  the  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  in  1793 
that  cotton  growing  and  cotton  manufacture  began  to  develop  in 
a  really  important  way  in  the  United  States. 

Now  the  United  States  leads  the  world  in  the  production  and 

/  consumption  of  cotton.  In  fact,  the  cotton  industry  of  the  world 
is  largely  dependent  on  the  United  States  for  its  supplies  of  raw 
material.  During  the  ten  years  preceding  the  war  the  total  world 
production  of  cotton  ranged  from  the  low  point  of  17,216,000  bales 
in  1909-10  to  the  high  point  of  23,309,000  bales  in  1913-14. 
>.  During  the  same  period  the  production  of  American  cotton 

/  ranged  from  the  low  point  of  10,592,000  bales  in  1909-10  to  the 
high  point  of  16,108,000  in  1911-12.  In  other  words,  the  United 
States  produces  normally  a  good  deal  more  than  half  the  world's 
total  supply  of  cotton.  Even  these  figures  do  not  reveal  fully  the 
importance  of  the  American  crop,  for  much  of  the  cotton  grown 
elsewhere  is  of  inferior  grade  and  staple.  A  more  accurate  idea 
of  the  preponderant  importance  of  American  cotton  in  the  world's 
total  supply  may  be  gleaned  from  the  fact  that  about  three-fourths 
of  the  cotton  used  by  the  British  mills  is  imported  from  the 
United  States. 

Normally  there  are  wide  fluctuations  from  year  to  year  in  the 
size  of  the  American  cotton  crop.  A  big  crop  one  year  is  almost 
invariably  followed  by  a  small  crop  the  next  year.  During  the  last 


10  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

twenty  years  the  crop  has  varied  from  a  little  over  10,000,000  bales 
I  to  a  little  over  16,000,000  bales;  so  that  we  may  take  the  average 
crop  as  being  about  13,000,000  bales.    Most  of  this  supply  is  of  good 
quality  and  averages  about  an  inch  in  staple. 

The  classification  of  grades  and  staples  will  be  explained  in 
another  chapter.     Suffice  it  to  say  here  that  cotton  running  less 
than  three-quarters  of  an  inch  in  staple   can  be  spun  only  into 
low-count  yarns  and  is  not  adaptable  for  most  of  the  cotton  fabrics 
known  in  the  dry  goods  trade.     Cotton  running  more  than  an  inch 
and  a  quarter  in  staple  is  used  chiefly  for  the  manufacture  of  fine 
eer  fabrics,  fine  knit  goods,  spool  thread  and  automobile  tires. 
Most  of  the  cotton  goods  familiar  to  the  trade  are  made  from  medium 
/cotton,  running  from  three-quarters  of  an  inch  to  one  and  one- 
• quarter  inch  in  staple.    And  it  is  such  cotton  that  forms  the  bulk 
Vof  the  American  crop. 

Outside  the  United  States  the  chief  cotton-growing  countries  are 
Egypt,  India  and  China.  The  Egyptian  crop  is  comparatively  small, 
averaging  only  about  1,000,000  American  bales;  but  most  of  it  is 
long  staple  cotton  of  fine  quality.  At  present  projects  are  under 
way  for  the  construction  of  dams  on  the  White  Nile  and  the  Blue 
Nile,  as  well  as  for  the  reclamation  of  the  water-logged  areas  in 
the  northern  part  of  the  Nile  Delta,  and  the  completion  of  these 
projects  will  mean  a  considerable  increase  in  the  supply  of  Egyptian 
cotton. 

J  The  Indian  crop  averages  somewhat  over  4,000,000  American 
bales.  This  is  merely  an  approximate  estimate,  as  the  available 
records  are  neither  accurate  nor  comprehensive.  Between  one-third 
and  one-half  of  this  supply  is  good  ordinary  cotton  running  from 
three-quarters  of  an  inch  to  one  inch  in  staple.  The  remainder 
is  short  staple  cotton.  The  records  of  the  Chinese  crop  are  even 
more  haphazard,  but  as  near  as  it  can  be  estimated  it  averages  about 
1,500,000  bales,  most  of  which  is  coarse,  short  staple  cotton,  running 
less  than  three-quarters  of  an  inch.  Some  very  good  Chinese  cotton, 
however,  is  grown  in  the  Wei  Basin  in  Shensi  from  seed  introduced 
by  American  missionaries,  and  also  in  South  Tungchow  near 
Shanghai. 

Russia,  before  the  war,  grew  about  1,500,000  bales  of  cotton.  At 
present  the  acreage  planted  to  cotton  in  Russia  is  only  a  small 
fraction  of  what  it  was,  but  Russian  production,  no  doubt,  will 
revive  in  time.  Cotton  is  also  grown  in  Brazil,  Peru,  Argentina, 
Mexico,  Colombia,  Ecuador,  Venezuela,  the  West  Indies,  Spain  and 


History  and  Distribution  of  Cotton  H 

the  South  Pacific  Islands.  The  total  supply  from  all  these  sources 
amounts  to  no  more  than  about  1,500,000  bales  annually.  Of  this 
over  500,000  bales  are  grown  in  Brazil,  about  250,000  in  Mexico  and 
about  150,000  bales  in  Peru.  Most  of  the  Brazilian  and  Mexican 
production  is  of  medium  staple  or  lower.  The  Peruvian  production 
consists  partly  of  rough  tree  cotton  and  partly  of  a  fine  variety  of 
long  staple  Egyptian  cotton.  But  the  total  amount  of  cotton  grown 
in  those  countries  is  not  enough  to  count  seriously  in  the  world's 
commerce. 

Altogether  it  is  clear  that  the  mills  of  the  world  are  to  a  large 
extent  dependent  on  the  American  supply.  A  realization  of  this 
dependence  has  prompted  other  countries  to  undertake  the  pro- 
duction of  cotton  on  a  large  scale  in  territory  controlled  by  them. 
The  most  notable  of  these  attempts  is  the  work  being  done  by  the 
British  Empire  Cotton  Growing  Association  for  the  promotion  of 
cotton  culture  in  Nigeria,  Uganda,  Nyasaland,  Rhodesia  and  other 
parts  of  the  British  Empire.  So  far  the  supply  from  these 
sources  has  been  inconsiderable,  amounting  to  only  about  30,000 
bales.  It  may  be  expected  to  grow  steadily.  But  for  some  years 
to  come  the  mills  of  Great  Britain  and  other  European  countries 
will  have  to  look  to  the  United  States  for  the  bulk  of  their  supply 
of  raw  cotton. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  COTTON  CROP 

IN  ancient  times  cotton  was  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  wool.  Even 
as  late  as  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  popularly  believed  in  Europe 
that  cotton  was  the  wool  of  lambs  that  grew  on  trees.  This 
conception  of  cotton  as  a  form  of  wool  survives  in  the  German  name 
for  cotton,  which  is  Baumwolle,  or  tree  wool.  The  Arabs,  who  were 
the  great  cotton  goods  traders  of  ancient  times,  and  who  introduced 
the  cultivation  of  cotton  and  the  manufacture  of  cotton  cloths  into 
the  Levant  and  Europe,  called  it  qutun,  from  which  we  derive  the 
word  cotton. 

Of  all  short  vegetable  fibers,  cotton  is  the  only  one  which  can  be 
spun  profitably  into  yarn.  It  owes  this  advantage  to  a  characteristic 
twist  in  the  fiber.  Viewed  microscopically,  the  cotton  fiber  looks  like 
a  thin,  flattened  cylinder  twisted  several  times  throughout  its  length 
and  resembling  somewhat  an  elongated  corkscrew.  This  twist  makes 
the  fibers  cling  together  in  spinning  and  lends  strength  and  dura- 
bility to  the  yarn.  Between  80  and  90  per  cent  of  the  cotton  fiber 
is  pure  cellulose.  The  remainder  is  made  up  of  water,  nitrogen- 
free  extract,  protein  and  a  vegetable  fat  known  as  "cotton  wax." 

Botanically,  cotton  belongs  to  the  same  order  of  plants  as  holly- 
hock, mallow  and  okra.  It  is  known  to  botanists  as  Gossypium. 
There  are  several  species  of  the  genus  Gossypium,  but  no  two  bot- 
anists seem  to  be  agreed  as  to  the  number  of  species  into  which  it 
can  be  divided.  Some  botanists  recognize  three  or  four  species  and 
some  recognize  over  eighty.  These  distinctions,  however,  are  of  no 
importance  in  a  commercial  sense. 

The  cotton  plant,  when  full  grown,  is  usually  from  three  to  six 
feet  high,  with  widespreading  branches  near  the  base,  and  tapering 
to  a  point  at  the  top.  It  bears  large  leaves,  somewhat  resembling 
ivy  leaves,  except  that — in  the  American  varieties,  at  least — they 
are  covered  with  a  sort  of  hair  and  have  a  dull  appearance.  The 
flowers  of  the  American  cotton  plant  are  generally  a  creamy  white, 
with  buff-colored  stamens.  After  the  flower  has  been  opened  for  a 
day  its  color  changes  to  pink  and  then  to  a  deep  red  or  magenta. 
The  flower  of  the  Sea  Island  and  Egyptian  varieties  is  usually  a 
lemon  or  golden  yellow,  with  crimson  spots  at  the  base  of  the  petals 
on  the  inside.  The  flower  of  some  Indian  varieties  is  red. 

[12] 


The  Cotton  Crop  13 


After  the  flower  drops  off,  which  it  does  on  the  third  or  fourth 
day,  there  remains  a  small  pod  or  boll,  known  as  a  "square."  This 
develops  until  it  becomes  about  the  size  and  shape  of  a  hen's  egg. 
Then  it  bursts,  revealing  three  to  nine  loculi,  or  cells,  divided 
from  each  other  by  membraneous  walls,  and  each  containing  seeds 
to  which  are  attached  the  lint  or  cotton. 

In  the  Egyptian  and  Sea  Island  varieties  the  lint  is  attached 
rather  loosely  to  the  seed  and  comes  away  easily  and  completely 
in  the  ginning.  But  in  most  American  and  Indian  varieties  the  lint 
adheres  closely  to  the  seed,  and  even  after  ginning  it  leaves  attached 
to  the  seed  a  short  Jjizz^which  is  known  as  "Jintejcfi."  and  is  removed 
by  a  process  known  as  "delinting."  The  chief  use  of  linters  nowadays 
is  for  the  making  of  guncotton. 

Cotton  is  an  exceedingly  difficult  crop  to  handle  successfully, 
for  it  requires  not  only  a  peculiar  combination  of  climatic  conditions, 
but  the  almost  constant  application  of  a  large  amount  of  labor.  In 
the  early  stages  of  its  growth  the  plant  requires  a  hot,  moist  climate, 
without  abrupt  changes  of  temperature,  and  with  frequent,  but  not 
too  heavy  or  long-continued,  rains.  It  also  requires  warm  nights. 
Cool  nights  weaken  the  delicate  growing  plant  and  necessitate 
resowing.  After  the  plant  is  mature  and  the  bolls  have  begun  to 
form,  it  needs  clear,  dry  weather,  but  not  excessively  high  tem- 
peratures. 

Much  rain  at  this  stage  of  the  crop  causes  stains  or  "tinges" 
which  lower  the  value  of  the  cotton.  It  also  promotes  the  develop- 
ment of  insect  pests.  Very  high  temperatures,  on  the  other  hand, 
check  the  development  of  insect  pests,  but  cause  premature  opening 
of  the  bolls,  with  resulting  damage  to  the  cotton  fiber.  Frost  is  fatal 
to  the  crop  at  any  stage  of  its  growth,  and  early  frost,  while  a  large 
part  of  the  cotton  is  still  to  be  picked,  often  causes  great  loss. 

So  much  damage  is  done  to  the  American  cotton  crop  by  insect 
pests  that  a  few  words  about  them  are  necessary.  The  worst  of 
these  is  the  boll-weevil,  which  is  of  Mexican  origin  and  first  made 
its  appearance  in  the  United  States  in  1892.  Within  recent  years 
it  has  spread  over  most  of  the  cotton  belt.  The  spread  of  this  insect 
is  favored  by  wet  weather  and  open  winters,  while  hot,  dry  weather 
kills  it.  The  weevil  makes  a  hole  with  its  beak  in  the  skin  of  the 
squares  or  young  bolls  and  deposits  its  eggs  within.  When  the 
larvae  are  hatched  they  feed  on  the  interior  substance  of  the  squares 
or  bolls,  causing  them  to  drop  off,  shrivel  up  or  rot. 
.  Next  in  importance  to  the  boll-weevil  is  the  boll-worm,  which 


14  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 


found  its  way  into  Texas  a  few  years  ago  from  Mexico.  It  originated 
in  Egypt  and  was  brought  to  Mexico  through  importations  of 
Egyptian  seed.  The  boll-worm  pierces  the  squares  or  bolls  and  feeds 
on  the  seed.  Besides  destroying  the  seed,  it  severs  much  of  the  fiber, 
and  dirties  or  stains  the  cotton.  Earlier  in  the  season  it  attacks 
the  bud,  and  bores  down  through  the  stem,  completely  killing  the 
plant.  In  addition,  cotton  is  subject  to  damage  by  cut- worms,  plant 
lice,  grasshoppers,  leaf -hoppers,  locusts  and  other  insects ;  by  fungus 
organisms,  and  by  various  diseases,  such  as  yellow-leaf  blight,  red- 
leaf  blight,  shedding,  leaf-spot  and  so  forth. 

It  is  well  to  remember,  in  following  crop  reports,  that  conditions 
vary  considerably  in  different  parts  of  the  American  cotton  belt. 
The  belt  stretches  from  Georgia  on  the  East  to  California  on  the 
West,  and  from  Texas  on  the  South  to  Virginia  on  the  North.  It 
includes  the  states  of  Alabama,  Arizona,  Arkansas,  California, 
Florida,  Georgia,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  North  Carolina,  Oklahoma, 
South  Carolina,  Tennessee  and  Texas.  So  many  different  kinds  of 
soil  and  climate  are  included  in  this  area  that  the  dates  of  the  crop 
season  and  the  methods  of  cultivation  are  naturally  not  the  same 
all  over.  In  general,  however,  it  may  be  said  that  the  crop  season 
lasts  from  five  to  nine  months,  and  that  the  numerous  operations 
involved  in  farming  it  require  the  employment  of  a  lot  of  labor  over 
most  of  that  time. 

The  land  is  first  prepared  for  planting  by  breaking  it  up  with  a 
plow.  This  is  sometimes  done  in  the  spring  and  sometimes  in  the 
fall  or  winter.  The  next  operation  is  known  as  "bedding  up"  and 
consists  of  making  the  ridges  or  beds  in  which  the  seed  is  planted. 
Then  a  furrow  is  run  down  the  middle  of  each  bed  to  receive  the 
fertilizer  and  the  seed.  This  process  is  known  as  "splitting  middles 
out."  The  use  of  a  suitable  fertilizer  is  very  important,  as  it  makes 
a  great  difference  in  the  yield  of  the  crop.  Artificial  fertilizers  are 
generally  used,  the  nature  of  the  fertilizer  depending  on  the  compo- 
sition of  the  soil,  the  location  of  the  land  and  other  factors. 

Subsequently  the  seed  is  planted.  Planting  time  is  usually  in 
April,  but  in  the  extreme  South  of  the  belt  planting  often  starts  as 
early  as  the  end  of  March,  while  in  the  extreme  North  of  the  belt 
it  is  often  deferred  until  May.  About  a  week  after  the  seed  is  sown 
the  young  plants  begin  to  appear. 

Then  the  real  work  starts  for  the  cotton  farmer.  The  plants  grow 
thickly  and  must  be  kept  thinned  or  "chopped  out"  with  a  hoe. 
During  this  growing  period  the  plants  require  warm  days  and  nights 


The  Cotton  Crop  15 


with  plenty  of  moisture.  But  these  conditions,  which  are  favorable 
for  the  growth  of  the  plant,  are  also  favorable  for  the  growth  of 
weeds  and  grass;  so  that  the  farmer  must  keep  his  fields  cleared 
by  constant  plowing  and  hoeing.  As  a  consequence,  a  lot  of  labor 
has  to  be  employed  continually  in  cultivating  the  plant  during  the 
months  of  May  and  June  and  sometimes  well  into  July. 

From  then  until  the  cotton  is  ready  to  pick  the  crop  is  "laid  by," 
as  the  saying  is,  and  requires  no  further  attention.  But  during 
the  picking  season  much  labor  is  again  required,  and  all  available 
hands  are  pressed  into  service.  So  far  no  machine  has  been  devised 
that  will  pick  cotton  effectively. 

The  chief  difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  bolls  mature  at 
different  times  on  the  same  plant  and  must,  consequently,  be  picked 
at  different  times.  On  the  average,  a  field  is  picked  over  about 
three  times.  Normally  the  bolls  at  the  bottom  of  the  plant  mature 
first;  then  the  bolls  in  the  middle,  and  finally  the  bolls  at  the  top. 
So  we  have  what  is  known  as  a  "bottom  crop,"  a  "middle  crop"  and 
a  "top  crop."  Picking  usually  starts  in  August,  although  occasionally 
cotton  has  been  picked  as  early  as  July.  On  the  average,  the  picking 
season  lasts  from  August  to  November.  If  the  formation  of  a  top 
crop  is  checked  by  excessive  drought  or  an  early  frost,  the  picking 
may  be  finished  in  October,  while  in  a  very  mild,  open  season  it 
may  last  into  December  or  even  January. 

The  cotton  is  pulled  from  the  boll  by  hand  and  dropped  into  a 
bag  carried  by  the  picker.  At  the  end  of  each  row  it  is  dumped  into 
a  larger  bag  or  basket.  These  large  bags  or  baskets  are  weighed 
and  loaded  on  wagons  which  carry  them  to  the  farm.  Small  farmers 
usually  store  the  cotton  in  their  houses  until  they  can  send  it  to 
be  ginned.  The  larger  planters  often  have  gin  houses  of  their  own, 
in  which  the  cotton  is  ginned  immediately  after  it  is  gathered.  The 
cotton,  before  it  is  ginned,  is  still  attached  to  the  seed,  and  is  con- 
sequently known  as  "seed  cotton."  As  a  rule  the  seed  constitutes 
about  two-thirds  of  the  gross  weight  of  seed  cotton.  The  remainder 
is  cotton  lint.  The  proportion  of  lint  to  the  gross  weight  of  seed 
cotton  is  known  as  the  "ginning  out-turn." 

Ginning  is  the  process  of  removing  the  lint  or  cotton  from  the 
seeds.  At  one  time  it  was  done  by  hand.  This  was  an  extremely 
slow  and  laborious  process — so  slow  and  laborious  that  it  took  a 
man  about  a  year  to  do  as  much  as  a  machine  can  now  do  in  a  day. 
Under  such  conditions  the  production  of  cotton  was  necessarily 
small.  The  total  production  of  American  cotton  in  1790  was  only 


16  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 


3138  bales.  But  with  the  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  by  Eli  Whitney 
in  1793  the  cotton  industry  was  completely  revolutionized,  and 
thenceforth  the  production  of  cotton  grew  by  leaps  and  bounds. 

At  first  the  gins  were  worked  by  horse  or  mule  power,  but  later 
both  horse  and  mule  gave  way  to  the  steam  engine.  Many  of  the 
large  planters,  as  already  mentioned,  maintain  their  own  gins,  but 
most  of  the  cotton  farmers  take  their  seed  cotton  to  large  ginneries 
which  are  located  in  neighboring  towns.  After  the  cotton  is  ginned 
it  is  pressed  and  packed  into  bales  weighing  about  500  pounds  each. 
It  is  then  ready  for  market. 


PICKING  THE  CROP  IN  GEORGIA.    WHOLE  FAMILIES,  FROM  CHILDREN  TO 
GRANDPARENTS,   WORK   DURING   THE   PICKING   SEASON 


TAKING  COTTON  TO  THE  GIN.     THE  GIN  Is  THE  CENTER  OF  ACTIVITY 
DURING  THE  PICKING  SEASON,  AS  FARMERS  CANNOT  STORE  LOOSE  COTTON 


CHAPTER  III 
MARKETING  THE  CROP 

THERE  are  very  many  varieties  of  cotton  known  to  the  mar- 
kets of  the  world.  These  varieties  are  so  numerous  and  the 
classification  of  them  is  so  irregular  that  it  would  be  im- 
practicable to  describe  them  in  detail.  Every  cotton-producing 
country  divides  its  product  into  a  number  of  different  varieties,  gen- 
erally according  to  the  districts  in  which  they  are  grown,  and  these 
varieties  in  turn  are  sub-divided  according  to  the  length  of  staple, 
the  seed  from  which  they  are  derived,  and  so  forth.  Only  a  limited 
number  of  varieties,  however,  are  familiar  to  the  American  market. 
These  may  be  roughly  classified  under  the  general  headings  of 
Egyptian  and  American. 

Several  varieties  of  Egyptian  cotton  are  known  to  the  market, 
the  most  familiar  being  Sakellaridis  (usually  mentioned  in  market 
reports  as  Sak  or  Sakel),  Mitafifi,  Ashmouni  and  Abassi.  The  bulk 
of  the  Egyptian  crop  is  Sakellaridis,  while  more  than  half  the  re- 
mainder is  Ashmouni.  Mitafifi  used  to  be  the  most  important  of 
Egyptian  varieties,  but  it  has  become  of  comparatively  little  impor- 
tance in  recent  years.  Most  of  the  Egyptian  crop  is  of  long  staple, 
running  from  1  to  1%  inches — the  latter  being  the  average  length 
of  Sakellaridis.  The  total  crop  averages  somewhat  over  1,000,000 
bales. 

A  new  and  important  variety  of  Egyptian  cotton,  known  as  Pima, 
is  being  grown  in  some  of  the  irrigated  districts  of  California  and 
Arizona,  notably  in  Yuma,  the  Imperial  Valley  and  the  Salt  River 
Valley.  The  total  production  of  Egyptian  cotton  in  Arizona  and 
California  for  the  year  1919,  according  to  the  figures  of  the  U.  S. 
Department  of  Agriculture,  was  42,374  bales.  There  is  also  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  Egyptian  cotton,  mostly  of  the  Mitafifi  variety, 
grown  in  Peru.  The  annual  Peruvian  production  of  Egyptian  cot- 
ton runs  between  75,000  and  100,000  bales. 

Egyptian  cotton  is  used  mostly  for  automobile  tires,  spool  thread,  \ 
lace,  fine  hosiery  and  knit  underwear,  fine  sheer  fabrics,  such  as  / 
nainsooks,  longcloths,  voiles,  organdies  and  muslins,  and  fine  fancy 
cottons,  such  as  novelty  white  goods,  silk  mixtures  and  so  forth. 
The  best  Egyptian  cotton  is  the  finest  in  the  world,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Sea  Island.     The  latter  is  an  American  cotton  and  gets  its 

[17] 


18  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 


name  from  the  fact  that  it  was  first  grown  on  the  islands  off  the 
coast  of  South  Carolina.  It  is  also  grown  on  parts  of  the  mainland 
of  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and  Florida,  as  well  as  in  the  West  In- 
dies, Brazil  and  Peru.  The  American  Sea  Island  crop,  however, 
has  practically  disappeared,  owing  to  the  ravages  of  the  boll  weevil. 
From  a  high  point  of  over  120,000  bales  in  former  years  it  had 
dropped  to  less  than  7000  bales  in  1919.  The  West  Indian,  Brazil- 
ian and  Peruvian  crops  are  also  very  small. 

In  the  United  States  the  Sea  Island  crop  is  being  replaced  to 
some  extent  by  a  new  variety  known  as  Mead  cotton,  which  is  being 
developed  under  the  auspices  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture. 
Mead  cotton  is  a  variety  of  what  is  known  as  Upland  cotton,  so- 
called  because  it  was  first  grown  on  the  uplands  of  the  Atlantic 
States.  Generally  included  under  the  head  of  Upland  cotton  are  a 
number  of  other  more  or  less  similar  varieties,  known  as  Gulf,  Ben- 
ders, Bottom  Land,  Mobile,  Peelers,  Allan-seed  and  so  forth.  Up- 
land cotton  constitutes  more  than  99  per  cent  of  the  total  American 
crop  and  about  60  per  cent  of  the  world's  total  supply  of  cotton. 
About  95  per  cent  of  all  the  cotton  dealt  in  on  the  American  markets 
and  about  75  per  cent  of  all  the  cotton  dealt  in  on  the  British  mar- 
kets is  Upland  cotton.  Except  when  otherwise  specified  all  cotton 
market  reports  and  quotations  in  the  United  States  refer  to  Upland 
cotton. 

The  process  of  marketing  the  American  cotton  crop  is  in  most 
cases  a  very  complicated  one,  and  between  the  gin  and  the  mill  the 
cotton  passes  through  many  hands.  When  the  farmer  receives  his 
cotton  from  the  gin  it  is  packed  in  large  loose  bales  covered  with  jute 
bagging  and  bound  with  steel  straps.  These  bales  are  known  as  "gin 
bales"  and  weigh  about  500  pounds  each,  including  about  20  pounds 
of  bagging  and  straps. 

As  they  are  too  bulky  in  proportion  to  their  weight  to  be  handled 
economically  in  shipping  and  warehousing,  they  are  compressed 
before  shipment  into  a  smaller  volume  by  the  action  of  a  powerful 
hydraulic  press.  These  compresses  are  located  at  what  are  called 
"compressing  points,"  which  are  usually  the  nearest  shipping  points. 
Some  of  the  large  planters  have  compresses  as  well  as  gins  on  their 
plantations  and  ship  their  cotton  direct  to  a  mill  or  a  warehouse. 
But  generally  the  cotton  is  marketed  in  a  more  roundabout  way. 

As  a  rule,  the  small  tenant  farmers  live  during  the  growing  sea- 
son partly  or  altogether  on  credit  furnished  by  local  storekeepers. 
When  they  receive  their  cotton  from  the  gin  they  deliver  it  to  the 


Marketing  the  Crop 


storekeeper  in  payment  of  their  debts  or  else  sell  it  for  cash  to  a 
local  cotton  buyer  known  as  a  "street  buyer,"  or  to  a  visiting  repre- 
sentative of  a  large  cotton  merchant.  While  this  is  the  general 
method  it  is  subject  to  innumerable  variations.  In  the  cotton-grow- 
ing districts  all  sorts  of  people  deal  in  cotton.  Cotton  is  the  farm- 
er's money  and  he  is  apt  to  use  it  in  payment  for  seed  or  fertilizer, 
for  rent,  for  goods  purchased  at  the  local  store,  for  credit  furnished 
by  the  local  bank.  The  larger  grower,  on  the  other  hand,  may  sell 
his  cotton  direct  or  ship  it  on  consignment  to  a  factor  located  in 
one  of  the  important  market  cities,  like  Houston  or  Memphis  or  St. 
Louis.  These  factors  are  usually  bankers  as  well,  financing  grow- 
ers and  local  buyers,  and  they  sell  directly  to  mills,  exporters  and 
foreign  accounts. 

By  whatever  means  the  cotton  is  gathered  from  the  grower  it 
finds  its  way  sooner  or  later  to  the  large  market  towns  or  seaports. 
Here  it  is  sampled,  graded  and  compressed.  By  the  time  the  gin 
bale  reaches  the  compress  it  looks  like  the  wreck  of  the  Hesperus. 
It  has  been  sampled  by  numerous  buyers  or  prospective  buyers,  who 
have  done  their  sampling  by  the  simple  process  of  tearing  a  hole 
here  and  there  in  the  bagging  and  pulling  out  a  handful  of  cotton. 
Sometimes  a  bale  shows  a  greater  surface  of  exposed  cotton  than 
of  bagging.  This  means  accumulated  dirt,  loss  of  cotton  and  often 
serious  damage  by  weather,  owing  to  inadequate  local  storage  facili- 
ties. At  the  compress,  instead  of  being  recovered  with  fresh  bag- 
ging, the  tattered  bale  is  simply  patched  by  tieing  pieces  of  bagging 
over  the  holes  with  a  few  extra  bands.  As  a  consequence  it  gets 
torn  open  again  in  shipment,  resulting  in  more  loss  of  cotton  and 
more  damage  from  dirt  and  weather.  The  annual  loss  of  Ameri- 
can cotton  through  imperfect  baling  and  inadequate  storage  facili- 
ties runs  into  very  large  figures  ;  but  improvement  in  these  respects, 
although  noticeable,  is  very  slow. 

At  the  compress  point  the  buyer  takes  a  sample  from  each  bale 
and  identifies  it  with  a  tag  corresponding  to  another  tag  which  is 
attached  to  the  bale  from  which  the  sample  is  taken.  These  sam- 
ples are  graded  under  the  supervision  of  the  buyer  by  experts  em- 
ployed for  this  purpose.  Cotton  is  graded  with  reference  to  a  num- 
ber of  qualities,  including  length  of  staple,  strength,  uniformity, 
color,  cleanliness  and  flexibility.  Irregularity  in  the  length  or 
diameter  of  the  staple;  weak,  unripe  or  dead  fibres;  bad  color  or 
lack  of  lustre;  damage  by  insects,  sun  or  frost;  boll  stains  or 
tinges,  and  much  dirt,  leaves  or  broken  seeds  —  all  these  are  among 


20  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

the  many  defects  which  detract  from  the  value  of  cotton.  Every- 
thing else  being  equal,  the  longer  the  staple  the  more  valuable  the 
cotton. 

The  grades  for  American  cotton  have  been  established  by  the 
United  States  Government  and  are  invariably  used  in  the  trade. 
For  white  cotton  the  grades  in  the  order  of  their  highest  value  are 
Middling  Fair,  Strict  Good  Middling,  Good  Middling,  Strict  Middling, 
Middling,  Strict  Low  Middling,  Low  Middling,  Strict  Good  Ordinary 
and  Good  Ordinary.  For  yellow  tinged  stock  the  grades  are  Strict 
Good  Middling,  Good  Middling,  Strict  Middling,  Middling,  Strict 
Low  Middling  and  Low  Middling.  For  yellow  stained  and  blue  stained 
cotton  there  are  only  three  grades :  Good  Middling,  Strict  Middling 
and  Middling. 

So  many  things  affect  the  grade  of  cotton  that  these  standard 
grades  are  not  absolutely  definitive.  In  other  words,  one  bale  of 
Middling  cotton  may  not  be  as  good  as  another  bale  of  the  same 
grade.  The  best  bales  of  Middling  are  likely  to  equal  the  low  bales 
of  Strict  Middling,  while  the  low  bales  of  Middling  may  be  no  better 
than  the  best  bales  of  Strict  Low  Middling.  The  Liverpool  stand- 
ards, or  so-called  International  standards,  are  slightly  different 
from  the  standards  of  the  United  States,  but  correspond  to  them 
closely  enough  for  practical  purposes.  Generally  speaking,  Liver- 
pool grades  above  Middling  are  slightly  lower  than  the  correspond- 
ing American  grades,  while  those  below  Middling  are  slightly  higher. 

The  basic  grade  of  all  Upland  cotton  is  Middling,  and  all  quota- 
tions are  based  upon  it.  So  that  when  we  read  in  market  reports 
of  15  or  20  cent  cotton  it  means  15  or  20  cents  for  Middling  Upland. 
The  other  grades  are  quoted  at  so  many  "points  on"  Middling  or  so 
many  "points  off"  Middling.  A  hundred  points  are  equivalent  to  one 
cent.  Thus,  if  Middling  cotton  were  20  cents  and  Middling  Fair 
were  quoted  at  "500  points  on,"  it  would  mean  a  price  of  25  cents 
for  Middling  Fair.  Under  the  same  circumstances  Good  Ordinary 
at  "500  points  off"  would  be  15  cents. 

Cotton  quotations  are  established  by  day-to-day  trading  on  the 
Exchanges.  The  Exchanges  are  simply  great  central  markets  where 
buyers  and  sellers,  or  their  representatives,  meet  for  the  purpose 
of  trading  in  cotton.  In  the  United  States  the  principal  cotton 
exchanges  are  those  of  New  York  and  New  Orleans.  Abroad  the 
chief  markets  are  Liverpool,  Bremen,  Havre,  Alexandria  and  Bom- 
bay. Outside  of  the  United  States  the  Liverpool  market  dominates 
the  cotton  world  and  its  standards  are  everywhere  adopted.  New 


Marketing  the  Crop  21 


Orleans  is  chiefly  a  "spot"  market,  which  means  that  most  of  its 
dealings  involve  the  actual  transference  of  cotton.  New  York,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  chiefly  a  "futures"  market,  which  means  that 
most  of  its  dealings  are  in  contracts  for  the  future  delivery  of  cot- 
ton. Liverpool  is  both  a  great  "spot"  and  a  great  "futures"  market. 

It  is  the  dealing  in  "futures"  which  introduces  most  of  the  specu- 
lative element  into  trading  on  the  Exchanges.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
few  of  the  "futures"  contracts  which  are  traded  in  from  day  to  day 
on  the  Exchanges  are  fulfilled  by  actual  delivery  of  cotton.  Some 
of  them  represent  purely  speculative  dealings  in  anticipation  of  a 
rise  or  a  drop.  The  man  who  buys  "futures"  on  speculation  is 
really  betting  that  prices  will  go  up,  while  the  man  who  sells  them 
on  speculation  is  really  betting  that  prices  will  go  down.  But  only 
a  small  proportion  of  the  trading  in  "futures"  is  speculative.  Most 
of  it  represents  a  practice,  known  as  "hedging,"  by  which  manu- 
facturers and  merchants  try  to  guard  against  fluctuations. 

Both  the  spinner  and  the  weaver  have  to  make  contracts  months 
ahead  for  the  delivery  of  their  product  at  a  specified  price.  This 
price  must  be  figured  with  reference  to  the  current  cost  of  raw  cot- 
ton, since  nobody  can  tell  what  the  price  of  raw  cotton  is  going  to 
be  several  months  ahead.  In  buying  cotton  at  the  current  market 
level  for  future  delivery,  against  contracts  for  the  future  delivery 
of  his  product  the  spinner  protects  himself  against  a  rise  in  prices 
which  might  wipe  out  his  profits. 

And  in  order  to  protect  himself  against  a  drop  in  prices  which 
would  make  his  cotton  worth  less  than  he  has  contracted  to  pay  for 
it  he  sells  contracts  for  the  future  delivery  of  a  corresponding 
amount  of  cotton.  Jn  other  words,  he  "hedges";  and  whether  cot- 
ton goes  up  or  down  his  gains  and  losses  balance  each  other. 
Similarly  the  merchant  who  sells  cotton  for  future  delivery  "hedges" 
by  buying  "futures"  for  a  corresponding  amount  of  cotton.  In  this 
way  the  buying  and  selling  of  "futures"  on  the  cotton  Exchanges, 
although  frequently  abused  by  speculative  interests,  really  serves 
to  stabilize  the  market  and  protect  the  cotton  manufacturer. 


CHAPTER  IV 
A  GREAT  INDUSTRY 

COTTON  manufacturing,  as  already  mentioned,  had  its  be- 
ginning in  India  over  8000  years  ago.  Its  introduction  into 
Spain  by  the  Moors  in  the  Tenth  Century  seems  to  have 
been  the  beginning  of  the  industry  in  Europe.  The  subsequent 
advance  of  cotton  manufacturing  in  Europe  was  very  slow.  This 
development  is  difficult  to  trace  owing  to  the  general  confusion 
of  cotton  and  wool  in  the  old  chronicles.  During  the  period  from 
the  Tenth  to  the  Sixteenth  Century  there  were  important  textile 
industries  in  Greece,  Italy,  Flanders  and  England.  These  included 
the  manufacture  of  silks,  woolens  and  linens,  but  whether  or  not 
they  included  also  the  manufacture  of  cottons  it  is  impossible 
to  say. 

It  is  at  least  certain  that  until  well  into  the  Seventeenth  Century 
cotton  manufacturing  in  Europe  had  not  developed  to  sufficient 
importance  to  compete  materially  with  Indian  cloths.  Even  as  late 
as  the  end  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  the  importation  of  Indian 
cotton  goods  to  Europe  was  being  conducted  on  such  a  large  scale 
that  an  association  was  formed  in  Edinburgh  in  1775  to  persuade 
women  from  wearing  Indian  cottons  in  preference  to  Scotch  cottons. 

But  by  this  time  there  had  grown  up  a  very  considerable  cotton 
manufacturing  industry  in  Great  Britain,  although  how  it  started 
there  is  not  quite  clear.  It  is  said  that  the  manufacture  of  cotton 
goods  was  established  in  northern  Italy  in  the  Sixteenth  Century, 
that  it  was  introduced  from  there  to  the  Netherlands,  and  that 
Flemish  spinners  and  weavers,  driven  from  the  Netherlands  by 
religious  persecution  at  the  beginning  of  the  Seventeenth  Century, 
introduced  the  industry  into  England.  In  any  case  we  find  the 
cotton  industry  firmly  established  in  Lancashire  by  the  middle  of 
the  Seventeenth  Century. 

It  was  in  England  that  the  great  impetus  was  given  to  cotton 
manufacturing,  and  the  foundations  of  the  industry  as  we  now 
know  it  were  really  laid,  by  the  invention  of  the  spinning  jenny, 
the  spinning  mule  and  the  power  loom.  Up  until  the  middle  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century  the  methods  of  cotton  manufacturing  were  almost 
as  primitive  as  they  had  been  for  centuries  before.  The  spinning 
of  yarn  was  a  cottage  industry,  done  on  a  spinning  wheel  by  women 

[22] 


A  Great  Industry  23 


and  girls.  The  weavers,  as  a  rule,  were  skilled  craftsmen  who 
bought  their  yarn  from  the  cottagers  or  else  employed  women  to 
spin  for  them.  Often  a  whole  family  would  be  engaged  in  the 
industry — the  men  doing  the  weaving  on  hand  looms,  the  women 
and  elder  girls  doing  the  carding  and  spinning,  and  the  children 
picking  the  cotton. 

At  first  the  weavers  sold  the  cloth  to  merchants.  Later  the 
merchants,  to  quote  an  English  authority,  "began  to  give  out  warps 
and  raw  cotton  to  the  weavers,  receiving  them  back  in  cloth,  and 
paying  for  the  carding,  roving,  spinning  and  weaving."  Later 
there  arose  a  class  of  middlemen,  called  "fustian-masters,"  who 
furnished  the  weaver  with  the  warp  and  raw  cotton,  paid  him  for 
the  spinning  and  weaving,  and  received  in  return  the  gray  or  un- 
finished cloth,  which  they  sold  to  the  merchant.  The  merchant, 
in  turn,  had  this  cloth  dyed  and  finished,  and  sold  it  to  the  mercers 
or  retailers.  Under  these  conditions  the  cotton  manufacturing 
industry  gradually  spread  until  it  became  a  factor  of  considerable 
importance  in  the  economic  life  of  England.  But  its  development 
was  retarded  by  the  limitations  of  the  spinning  wheel. 

The  old  hand  loom,  although  primitive  enough,  was  a  more 
advanced  machine  than  the  spinning  wheel  and  was  improved  more 
rapidly.  In  1738  the  flying  shuttle,  a  device  for  driving  the  shuttle 
through  the  warp  mechanically  instead  of  by  hand,  was  invented 
by  John  Kay,  a  native  of  Bolton,  Lancashire.  His  son,  Robert, 
invented  in  1760  a  device  known  as  a  drop  box,  to  hold  several 
shuttles  with  threads  of  different  colors,  which  made  possible 
quicker  changes  in  weaving  cloths  of  more  than  one  color.  In  the 
latter  year  a  new  kind  of  loom,  known  as  the  swivel  loom,  was 
introduced  into  England  from  Holland.  This  made  possible  the 
weaving  of  several  narrow  pieces  of  cloth  at  the  same  time. 
Soon  afterward  came  the  harness-loom  for  weaving  figured  goods, 
which  was  superseded  later  by  the  Jacquard  loom. 

As  a  result  of  improvements  in  the  loom,  weavers  found  it 
difficult  to  get  enough  yarn  to  keep  them  busy,  and  attention  was 
turned  toward  improvement  in  the  spinning  wheel.  The  first  and 
most  revolutionary  improvement  came  in  1764,  when  James  Har- 
greaves,  a  laborer  of  Blackburn,  Lancashire,  invented  the  spinning 
jenny,  a  machine  which  twisted  several  threads  at  one  time  where 
the  old  spinning  wheel  twisted  only  one.  An  improved  jenny, 
capable  of  spinning  a  harder  yarn,  was  invented  in  1769  by  a  barber 
named  Arkwright,  who  lived  in  Preston,  Lancashire.  Both  types 


24  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

of  jenny  were  used  in  England  until  they  were  superseded  by  the 
spinning  mule,  an  invention  of  Samuel  Crompton  of  Bolton. 

The  spinning  mule  with  various  improvements  is  still  in  general 
use,  although  in  the  United  States  it  has  been  supplanted  to  a 
large  extent  by  the  ring  spinner,  an  invention  attributed  to  an 
American  named  James  Thorpe  in  1828.  The  ring  spinner  is  very 
much  more  rapid  and  economical  than  the  mule  spinner,  but  it  is 
generally  conceded  that  the  latter  spins  softer  and  more  even  yarns. 
Mule  spindles  still  predominate  in  England,  but  the  ring  spindle 
is  making  rapid  headway  there. 

Improvements  in  the  spinning  machine  eventually  made  necessary 
further  improvements  in  the  loom,  and  in  1787  the  power  loom  was 
invented  by  Edmund  Cartwright,  an  English  preacher.  This  inven- 
tion was  adopted  very  slowly,  but  by  degrees  the  old  hand  loom  was 
eliminated  and  the  power  loom  improved  until  to-day  it  has  become 
an  automatic  machine  of  high  efficiency.  Numerous  inventions  have 
served  to  bring  the  loom  to  its  present  state,  the  most  important  of 
them  perhaps  being  the  Northrup  automatic  loom,  invented  by  an 
Englishman  named  James  Northrup,  but  taken  up  and  developed  by 
an  American  firm. 

From  its  modest  beginnings  the  English  cotton  industry  grew 
rapidly  until  England  became  the  greatest  cotton  manufacturing 
country  in  the  world.  In  the  middle  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  there 
were  about  30,000  people  engaged  in  the  cotton  manufacturing  in- 
dustry in  and  around  Manchester.  At  the  present  time  there  are  in 
Lancashire  about  500,000  people  directly  engaged  in  the  spinning  and 
weaving  of  cotton.  And  when  it  is  remembered  that  one  person  at 
a  modern  spinning  frame  or  power  loom  can  do  as  much  work  as 
many  persons  did  with  the  old  spinning  wheel  or  hand  loom,  it  can 
easily  be  realized  what  a  tremendous  expansion  these  comparative 
figures  of  employment  represent. 

The  English  cotton  industry  is  still  located  chiefly  in  Lancashire, 
although  there  is  also  some  cotton  manufacturing  done  in  Yorkshire. 
Scotland  has  a  considerable  cotton  manufacturing  industry  in  the 
counties  of  Ayr,  Renfrew  and  Lanark.  The  principal  cotton  manu- 
facturing cities  of  England  are  Oldham,  Bolton,  Manchester,  Roch- 
dale, Stockport,  Preston,  Leigh,  Burnley  and  Blackburn.  Manchester 
continues  to  be  the  world's  greatest  market  for  cotton  cloth  and 
Liverpool  the  world's  greatest  market  for  raw  cotton. 

But  the  predominant  position  in  the  cotton  industry  so  long  held 
by  Great  Britain  is  rapidly  being  taken  away  from  her  by  the  United 


IN  THE  COTTON  GIN. 


HERE  THE  SEED  Is   REMOVED  AND  THE  COTTON 
PRESSED  INTO  BALES 


VIEW  OF  A  COTTON   COMPRESS,   SHOWING  THE  POWERFUL  PRESS  THAT 
CONDENSES  THE  COTTON  INTO  COMPACT  BALES  FOR  SHIPPING 


A  Great  Industry  25 


States.  As  far  as  we  know,  the  first  cotton  factory  in  the  United 
States  was  one  built  at  Beverly,  Mass.,  in  1787.  This  enterprise 
failed,  owing  to  the  inadequacy  of  the  machinery  used.  In  1790, 
however,  Samuel  Slater,  who  had  become  familiar  with  the  Ark- 
wright  machinery  in  England,  built  a  mill  at  Pawtucket,  R.  I.,  with 
machinery  constructed  on  the  Arkwright  principle.  This  machine 
was  driven  by  a  water-wheel  and  was  known  as  a  water-frame.  It 
contained  twenty-four  spindles.  These  twenty-four  spindles  were, 
so  to  speak,  the  ancestors  of  almost  35,000,000  spindles  now  em- 
ployed in  the  American  cotton  industry. 

During  the  fifty  years  following  the  establishment  of  Samuel 
Slater's  mill,  cotton  manufacturing  grew  rapidly  in  America.  We 
quote  from  a  book  called  "The  American  Cotton  Spinner,"  written  by 
Robert  H.  Baird  and  published  in  1851:  "Since  this  first  machinery 
was  in  operation,  the  advancement  and  extension  of  the  cotton  manu- 
facture is  truly  astonishing;  it  has  caused  hundreds  of  populous 
cities,  towns  and  villages  to  spring  up,  as  if  reared  by  some  magic 
influence,  where,  a  few  years  ago,  nothing  was  seen  but  a  barren 
wilderness.  The  cotton  manufacture  continued  to  spread  from 
this  time  up  to  the  War  of  1812,  which  gave  the  manufactures  a 
strong  impulse. 

"There  were  several  mills  in  Rhode  Island  in  1807.  ...  In 
this  year  the  Globe  mills,  in  Philadelphia,  were  erected.  ...  In 
1812,  there  were  in  Rhode  Island  thirty-three  cotton  factories,  con- 
taining 30,663  spindles.  In  Massachusetts  there  were  twenty  mills, 
with  17,371  spindles."  In  1819  a  group  of  Boston  men  erected  the 
first  factories  at  Lowell,  Mass.,  which  was  then  "a  poor  barren  dis- 
trict, containing  but  a  few  houses,  and  inhabitants,  who  supported 
themselves  principally  by  fishing  in  the  Concord  and  Merrimack 
rivers."  In  1840,  according  to  this  authority,  there  were  in  the 
United  States  about  1025  cotton  mills,  containing  2,112,000  spindles 
and  consuming  106,000,000  pounds,  or  about  200,000  bales,  of  cot- 
ton annually.  Of  these  2,112,000  spindles  nearly  1,600,000  were  in 
the  States  of  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  New  Hampshire,  Con- 
necticut and  Maine.  In  1850  the  number  of  spindles  operated  in 
the  United  States,  according  to  a  recent  estimate,  was  about  3,500,- 
000.  By  1920  the  industry  had  expanded  until  it  operated  34,700,000 
spindles. 

New  England  is  still  the  most  important  cotton  manufacturing 
center  of  the  United  States,  although  it  is  gradually  being  super- 
seded by  the  South.  In  New  Encland  the  industry  is  located  chiefly 


26  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 


in  and  around  the  cities  of  Fall  River,  New  Bedford,  Lowell  and  Law- 
rence, Mass.;  Providence,  R.  I.,  and  Manchester  and  Nashua,  N.  H. 
In  the  South  it  is  located  chiefly  in  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina, 
Georgia,  Alabama  and  Virginia.  The  growth  of  manufacturing  in 
the  South  has  been  extraordinarily  rapid.  As  late  as  1880  the 
South  consumed  only  188,748  bales  of  cotton,  as  against  1,129,498 
consumed  by  New  England.  At  present  the  South  consumes  an- 
nually nearly  a  million  bales  more  than  New  England.  On  the 
other  hand,  New  England  possesses  more  spindles  and  produces  a 
greater  yardage  of  cloth.  This  apparent  contradiction  is  accounted 
for  by  the  fact  that  the  production  of  the  Southern  mills  includes  a 
higher  proportion  of  heavy  cottons  than  the  production  of  the  New 
England  mills.  The  total  American  consumption  of  cotton  for  the 
season  1919-20,  as  estimated  by  Shepperson's  "Cotton  Facts,"  was 
6,759,631  running  bales,  including  linters.  Of  this  amount  the 
Southern  mills  took  3,589,675  bales  and  the  Northern  mills  2,835,669 
bales.  Out  of  a  total  of  34,700,000  spindles  in  the  United  States  in 
1920  the  North  had  19,600,000  and  the  South  15,100,000. 

The  relation  of  the  South  to  the  North  in  cotton  manufacturing 
parallels  rather  closely  the  relation  of  the  United  States  to  Eng- 
land. In  other  words,  cotton  manufacturing  in  the  United  States  is 
growing  faster  than  in  England,  and  it  already  consumes  a  greater 
quantity  of  raw  cotton  and  produces  a  greater  poundage  of  cloth, 
but  ft  is  still  behind  in  the  number  of  spindles  employed  and  the 
number  of  yards  of  cloth  produced.  Similarly  England  is  still  ahead 
of  the  United  States  in  the  production  of  fine  goods.  The  total 
number  of  spindles  in  Great  Britain  in  1920  is  estimated  at  57,300,- 
000,  as  compared  with  35,700,000  in  the  United  States.  The  con- 
sumption of  cotton  by  the  British  mills  for  the  season  1919-20  was 
approximately  3,700,000  bales  of  500  pounds  each,  as  compared  with 
6,542,000  bales  by  the  mills  of  the  United  States. 

The  average  production  of  piece  goods  during  the  years  1910-13 
is  estimated  at  1,900,000,000  pounds  in  the  United  States  and  1,400,- 
000,000  pounds  in  Great  Britain. 

This  estimate  of  piece  goods  production  is  taken  from  a  report 
compiled  by  the  Research  Committee  of  the  National  Council  of 
Manufacturers,  which  shows  the  average  world  production  of  cotton 
goods  by  weight  during  the  years  mentioned.  The  total  average 
production  is  given  as  7,816,500,000  pounds.  Of  this  total  the  United 
States  produced  24.4  per  cent,  Great  Britain  18.0  per  cent,  Russia 
8.7  per  cent,  Germany  8.3  per  cent,  India  6.8  per  cent,  France  4.5 


A  Great  Industry  27 


per  cent,  Japan  4.4  per  cent,  Italy  4.0  per  cent,  Austria-Hungary 
3.8  per  cent,  and  all  other  countries  together  17.1  per  cent.  These 
proportions  have  been  changed  to  some  extent  since  the  war  disrupted 
European  industry. 

There  are  no  available  statistics  showing  the  relative  produc- 
tion of  the  different  countries  of  the  world  at  present,  but  it  is  ap- 
proximately indicated  by  the  following  figures,  taken  from  Shepper- 
son's  "Cotton  Facts,"  showing  the  consumption  of  cotton  for  the 
season  1919-20 :  United  States  6,542,000  bales,  Great  Britain  3,700,- 
000  bales,  the  European  Continent  3,660,000  bales,  Japan  1,825,000 
bales,  India  1,646,000  bales,  Canada  220,000  bales,  and  all  other 
countries  1,200,000  bales.  The  most  important  changes  to  be  noted 
in  the  relative  position  of  the  different  manufacturing  countries 
since  before  the  war  are  the  increased  importance  of  Japan  and 
India,  the  cession  to  France  of  the  German  mills  located  in  Alsace, 
the  appearance  of  Poland  and  Czecho-Slovakia  as  independent  coun- 
tries with  important  cotton  manufacturing  industries  formerly  be- 
longing to  Russia  and  Austria-Hungary,  and  the  breakdown  of  Rus- 
sian production  through  revolution. 


CHAPTER  V 
THROUGH  THE  SPINNING  MILL 

RAW  cotton,  as  previously  explained,  is  bought  by  the  spinner 
from  the  cotton  merchant  or  grower  either  direct  or  through 
an  exchange  broker.    The  spinner  is  the  person  or  firm  that 
converts  the  raw  cotton  into  yarns.    Some  large  manufacturing  firms 
conduct  all  the  processes  involved  in  the  turning  of  raw  cotton 
into  finished  cotton  cloth;  but,  as  a  rule,  spinning,  weaving  and  fin- 
ishing are  three  distinct  and  independent  branches  of  the  cotton 
manufacturing  industry. 

In  buying  his  cotton  the  spinner  must  have  in  mind  a  number 
of  important  considerations,  the  chief  of  which  are:  (1)  The  amount 
of  cotton  he  is  likely  to  need  for  a  definite  period  ahead ;  (2)  the 
possible  fluctuations  in  the  price  of  cotton  during  the  period  for 
which  he  must  cover  his  needs;  (3)  the  varieties  of  yarn  which  he 
proposes  to  make. 

The  last-named  consideration  is  of  special  importance.  Every 
grade  and  variety  of  cotton  has  a  distinctive  spinning  quality  of 
its  own,  and  the  same  grade  and  variety  of  cotton  will  often  vary 
in  spinning  quality  according  to  the  conditions  under  which  it  has 
been  grown  and  stored.  But  the  spinner  is  under  the  necessity  of 
maintaining  a  fixed  and  constant  quality  in  his  yarns,  and  in  order 
to  do  this  he  must  exercise  great  care  and  skill  in  the  purchasing 
of  his  cotton. 

The  cotton  arrives  at  the  mill  in  closely  packed  compress  bales. 
After  the  iron  bands  and  the  wrappings  have  been  removed  the 
cotton  is  found  to  be  packed  into  big,  hard  lumps,  which  must  be 
broken  up.  This  is  done  by  a  machine  known  as  a  bale  breaker. 
From  the  bale  breaker  the  cotton  passes  to  another  machine  called 
the  bale  opener,  which  breaks  the  cotton  up  into  still  finer  pieces 
and  removes  a  good  deal  of  the  dirt,  leaves  or  other  foreign  sub- 
stances which  may  be  clinging  to  the  fiber.  Then  the  cotton  is 
usually  conveyed  to  ajm'xinftfcJTi.  where  the  different  kinds  of  cotton 
are  mixed  in  the  right  proportion  to  produce  the  kind  of  yarn  that 
is  desired.  As  already  mentioned,  a  spinner  must  maintain  a  con- 
stant quality  in  his  yarns,  particularly  if  he  is  making  yarns  for 
well-known  standard  cloths,  which  owe  a  good  deal  of  their  reputa- 
tion to  their  unvarying  quality.  He  cannot  always  get  the  kind 

[28] 


Through  the  Spinning  Mill  29 

of  cotton  he  needs  for  his  purpose  in  sufficient  quantity  or  at  a 
practicable  price,  and  consequently  it  is  often  necessary  for  him 
to  mix  several  different  kinds  of  cotton  in  order  to  get  the  result 
he  aims  at. 

from  the  mixing  bin  the  cotton  passes  to  a  machine,  called  a 
picker,  which  loosens  up  the  cotton  and  delivers  it  in  a  soft,  flat 
sheet,  known  as  a  lap.  The  lap,  as  it  comes  from  the  picker,  looks 
like  a  sheet  of  absorbent  cotton  such  as  is  sold  in  drug  stores. 
Thence  it  passes  to  other  machines,  called  the  intermediate  picker 
and  finisher  picker,  which  loosen  up  the  fibers  still  more  and  beat 
out  of  the  cotton  whatever  dust  or  other  foreign  matter  may  be  still 
adhering  to  it.  If  the  cotton  is  very  dirty  it  is  also  passed  through 
additional  machines  called  scutchers,  which  subject  it  to  further 
beating  and  shaking. 

The  laps  of  cotton,  which  are  delivered  from  the  pickers  or 
scutchers,  are  still  not  altogether  free  from  foreign  matter,  such  as 
bits  of  sticks  and  leaves,  and  the  fibers  are  more  or  less  tangled  up. 
In  order  to  remove  whatever  impurities  may  remain,  as  well  as  to 
straighten  out  the  fibers  and  eliminate  knotted,  immature  or  too 
short  fibers,  the  cotton  is  put  through  the  carding  machine.  What 
the  carding  machine  does,  in  brief,  is  to  comb  out  the  laps  of  cotton, 
lay  the  fibers  approximately  parallel  to  one  another  and  condense 
the  lap  into  a  soft,  untwisted  rope,  which  is  called  a  sliver.  This 
rope  or  sliver  of  cotton  is  delivered  from  the  carding  machine  in 
loose  coils  into  a  large  can. 

If  the  cotton  is  going  to  be  spun  into  fine  yarns  or  into  coarser 
yarns  of  exceptional  smoothness  and  regularity  it  is  subjected  to 
a  further  process  known  as  combing.  The  combing  machine  simply 
does  over  again,  and  much  more  thoroughly,  what  the  carding 
machine  has  already  done.  It  subjects  the  fibers  to  a  very  fine 
combing,  eliminates  the  shorter  ones  and  delivers  a  sliver  of  greater 
smoothness  and  uniformity  than  that  which  has  been  delivered  from 
the  carding  machine".  The  first  cotton  combing  machine,  by  the  way, 
was  invented  by  a  native  of  Alsace,  named  Heilmann,  and  was 
patented  in  1845. 

After  leaving  the  carding  or  combing  machine,  as  the  case  may 
be,  the  slivers  are  taken  to  the  drawing  frame.  Here  six  or  eight 
of  them  are  combined  into  one  sliver,  which  is  passed  through 
several  pairs  of  rollers  and  is  drawn  out  until  it  is  about  the  diameter 
of  one  of  the  original  slivers.  Thence  it  passes  to  the  fly  frame  or 
slubbing  frame,  where  it  is  drawn  out  into  a  still  smaller  diameter 


30  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

and  given  a  slight  twist,  so  that  it  can  be  subjected  to  more  strain 
without  breaking.  After  leaving  the  slubbing  frame  the  sliver  is 
known  as  a  slubbing  or  slub.  It  is  then  put  through  the  intermediate 
frame,  which  draws  it  out  still  more,  gives  it  a  further  twist  and 
winds  it  on  spindles. 

The  slubbings  from  the  intermediate  frame  go  to  the  roving 
frame,  which  combines  two  of  them  into  one,  twists  them  some  more 
and  winds  them  on  spindle  tubes.  In  the  case  of  very  coarse  yarns 
the  slubbings  go  direct  from  the  slubbing  frame  to  the  roving  frame. 
After  leaving  the  roving  frame  the  slubbings  are  known  as  rovings, 
and  in  this  condition  they  are  ready  to  be  spun.  In  the  case  of  very 
fine  yarns,  however,  the  rovings  are  drawn  out  still  further  in  a  jack 
frame  before  being  spun.  The  jack  frame  simply  carries  to  a  finer 
point  the  process  already  performed  by  the  roving  frame. 

The  rovings  are  spun  into  yarn  on  a  spinning  machine.  There 
are  two  distinct  types  of  spinning  machine  in  use — namely,  the  mule 
frame  and  the  ring  frame.  Both  of  these  do  the  same  things  to  the 
roving:  they  draw  it  out,  twist  it  into  yarn  and  wind  the  yarn  on 
spindles.  The  difference  between  them  is  that  the  mule  frame  does 
these  three  things  consecutively,  while  the  ring  frame  does  them 
simultaneously.  Because  of  its  slow,  easy  motion  the  mule  frame 
is  not  so  hard  on  the  yarn  as  the  ring  frame,  and  is,  therefore,  more 
adapted  to  making  very  soft  yarns  and  very  fine  yarns.  The  ring 
frame,  which  is  much  more  rapid  and  economical,  is  best  adapted 
to  the  making  of  medium  yarns.  Ring  frames  are  used  almost  exclu- 
sively in  the  spinning  mills  of  the  United  States,  while  mule  frames 
still  predominate  in  England. 

Yarn  comes  from  the  spinning  machine  wound  on  cones,  tubes 
or  bobbins.  It  is  frequently  marketed  in  this  form,  but  more  gen- 
erally it  is  put  up  for  shipment  in  skeins.  Cops,  which  often  appear 
in  market  quotations,  are  cylindrical  coils  of  yarn  with  tapering 
ends,  produced  on  mule  spindles.  Warp  yarns  are  sometimes  shipped 
in  balled  or  looped  chains,  or  wound  on  beams  or  rollers. 

All  yarns  are  roughly  divisible  into  two  classes :  warp  yarns  and 
weft  or  filling  yarns.  The  former  must  be  hard-twisted  and  strong, 
because  they  must  bear  a  good  deal  of  strain  during  the  weaving 
process,  while  the  latter  have  to  undergo  little  strain  during  the 
weaving  process  and  are  consequently  more  loose  and  less  twisted. 
Warp  yarns  have  to  undergo  considerable  preparation  before  they 
are  ready  for  the  loom,  but  as  this  is  usually  done  in  the  weaving 
mill  it  will  be  described  in  the  next  chapter.  Frequently  both  warp 


Through  the  Spinning  Mill  31 

and  filling  yarns  are  dyed,  bleached  or  subjected  to  some  other 
finishing  process,  such  as  gassing  or  mercerizing.  These  processes 
will  be  described  later. 

For  market  purposes  yarns  are  graded  primarily  according  to 
the  number  of  hanks  of  840  yards  each  that  weigh  one  pound.  For 
instance,  a  yarn  weighing  840  yards  to  the  pound  would  be  known 
as  No.  1,  or  simply  1's;  a  yarn  weighing  1680  yards  to  the  pound 
would  be  known  as  No.  2,  or  2's ;  a  yarn  weighing  8400  yards  to  the 
pound  would  be  known  as  No.  10,  or  10's,  and  so  on.  These  numbers 
are  referred  to  as  the  count,  and  we  speak  of  low  count,  high  count 
and  medium  count  yarns.  Obviously  the  higher  the  count  the  finer 
the  yarn.  Thus  a  pound  of  100's  yarn  would  contain  84,000  yards. 
According  to  the  classification  made  by  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
the  Census  coarse  yarns  include  20's  and  under,  medium  yarns  in- 
clude 21's  to  40's,  and  fine  yarns  include  40's  and  over. 

Yarns  are  spun  for  commercial  purposes  as  high  as  400's,  but 
counts  above  200's  are  used  only  in  the  finest  kind  of  lace  specialties. 
Not  very  many  woven  fabrics  are  made  from  yarns  finer  than  100's 
and  few  of  them  are  made  from  yarns  finer  than  80's.  Counts 
higher  than  80's  are  rarely  seen  in  market  quotations.  More  than 
90  per  cent  of  the  yarns  spun  by  American  mills  are  under  40rs,  and, 
while  some  American  mills  are  equipped  to  spin  as  high  as  200's, 
they  rarely  spin  above  80's.  Weft  or  filling  yarns,  being  softer  and 
weaker  than  warp  yarns,  can  be  spun  from  a  fourth  to  a  half  finer. 
Thus,  a  cottton  that  would  spin  about  100's  warp  yarn  would  spin 
about  150's  filling  yarn. 

Consequently  yarn  quotations  must  specify  not  only  the  count 
but  also  whether  it  is  warp  or  filling  yarn.  In  addition,  they  must 
specify  whether  it  is  a  single  yarn  or  a  2-ply  or  multiple-ply  yarn. 
As  it  comes  from  the  spinning  machine  the  yarn  is  a  single  yarn. 
Two  single  yarns  twisted  together  make  a  2-ply  yarn;  three  single 
yarns  twisted  together  make  a  3-ply  yarn,  and  so  forth.  Market 
quotations,  furthermore,  carry  other  additional  descriptions  of  the 
yarn,  such  as  the  kind  of  cotton  from  which  it  is  made,  the  district 
in  which  it  is  made,  the  manner  in  which  it  is  put  up,  and  so  forth. 
For  example,  a  typical  quotation  would  be  for  Southern  combed 
peeler  skeins,  2-ply  30's.  This  would  mean  combed  2-ply  yarn 
weighing  25,200  yards  to  the  pound,  made  in  Southern  mills  from 
peeler  cotton  and  put  up  in  skeins.  A  quotation  for  10rs  Eastern 
carded  cones  would  mean  a  carded  yarn  weighing  8400  yards  to 
the  pound,  made  in  an  Eastern  mill  and  wound  on  cones.  If  it  is 


32  Cotton.,  the  Universal  Fiber 


remembered  that  the  count  of  the  yarn  multiplied  by  840  gives  the 
number  of  yards  to  the  pound,  that  the  terms  skein,  cone,  chain 
and  cop  refer  to  the  way  in  which  the  yarn  is  put  up  for  shipment, 
and  that  the  other  terms  are  descriptive  of  the  kind  of  yarn  offered, 
it  will  be  easy  to  understand  the  meaning-  of  all  yarn  quotations. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  indicate  precisely  just  what  kind  of 
goods  are  made  from  the  different  counts  of  yarn,  because  yarns  of 
any  given  count  may  vary  materially  in  quality  and  because  different 
qualities  of  a  certain  cloth — a  percale,  for  instance — are  made  from 
different  counts  of  yarn.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  the  bulk  of 
the  staple  cottons  sold  over  the  retail  counter — such  as  prints,  per- 
cales, ginghams,  shirtings,  fine  sheetings,  sateens,  lawns,  muslins, 
nainsooks,  and  so  forth — are  made  from  yarns  counting  from  25's 
to  40's  in  the  warp  and  35's  to  60's  in  the  filling.  Most  of  the  heavy 
cottons,  like  denims,  tickings,  ducks,  drills  and  heavy  sheetings,  are 
made  from  yarns  counting  under  10's  in  the  warp.  Yarns  counting 
higher  than  40's  go  into  fine  sheer  goods,  silk  mixtures  and  other 
fancies,  while  only  the  very  finest  kind  of  sheer  and  mercerized 
cottons  will  take  yarns  as  fine  as  80's.  Yarns  counting  above  80's 
are  used  chiefly  for  lace,  sewing  thread,  fine  hosiery,  gloves,  hand- 
knitting,  electrical  insulating,  and  for  wool,  mohair  or  silk  mixtures. 
Voile  and  crepe  yarns  are  in  a  separate  category  by  themselves,  as 
they  require  a  special  kind  of  twist. 


PACKING  COTTON  INTO  CYLINDRICAL  BALES 


SHIPPING  COTTON  IN  TEXAS 


CHAPTER  VI 
FROM  YARNS  TO  GRAY  GOODS 

EXCEPT  where  spinning  and  weaving  are  both  done  by  the  same 
firnyfcirns  are  bought  by  the  weaver  either  direct  from  the 
spinner  or  from  merchants  who  make  a  specialty  of  the  pur- 
chase and  sale  of  yarns./  There  is  an  open  market  on  yarns,  just  as 
there  is  on  raw  cotton  or  cloths,  and  quotations  are  apt  to  vary  from 
day  to  day,  usually  following  pretty  closely  the  fluctuations  in  the 
raw  cotton  market.  Most  yarns,  of  course,  like  most  cloths,  are 
made  on  order.  This  is  particularly  true  of  special  yarns  for  fancy 
cloths.  But  a  certain  amount  of  yarns  in  standard  counts  are  made 
for  stock  or  to  avoid  a  shutdown  during  dull  periods ;  so  that  there 
is  always  a  spot  market  for  yarns^ 

Before  buying  his  yarn  the  weaver  naturally  has  to  determine 
the  kind  of  goods  he  is  going  to  make.  He  buys  his  yarns  accord- 
ingly and  they  are  delivered  to  him  in  skeins,  cones,  cops  or  other- 
wise, as  already  explained.  The  width  and  construction  of  the 
cloth  determine  the  number  of  warp  threads — or  ends,  as  they  are 
called — which  he  will  need  to  put  on  the  loom.  The  warp  threads, 
or  ends,  are  those  which  run  lengthwise  of  the  fabric.  They  are 
stretched  taut  in  the  loom  and  shuttles  containing  the  weft  or  fill- 
ing thread  pass  over  and  under  them,  thus  weaving  the  cloth.  The 
filling  threads  are  usually  referred  to  as  picks.  The  cloth  about  to 
be  woven  may  be  a  27-inch  64  x  60  print  cloth.  That  is  to  say,  it 
may.be  a  cloth  27  inches  wide,  containing  64  warp  threads,  or  ends, 
and  60  filling  threads,  or  picks,  to  the  square  inch.  It  will,  there- 
fore, require  64  multiplied  by  27 — or  1728 — warp  threads. 

So  the  yarn  from  the  skeins  or  cones  or  cops,  as  the  case  may 
be,  is  wound  on  1728  spools  by  means  of  a  machine  called  a  spooler. 
These  spools  are  then  placed  in  a  large  frame,  called  a  creel,  where 
the  yarn  is  unwound  from  them  and  wound  regularly  and  evenly  on 
a  beam,  called  the  warp  beam.  This  process  is  known  as  warping. 
Before  the  warp  yarns  are  placed  in  the  loom  they  are  usually 
immersed  in  a  sizing  solution  in  order  to  give  them  more  strength, 
stiffness  and  smoothness.  In  passing  through  this  solution  they  are 
unwound  from  the  warp  beam  and  rewound  on  another  beam,  called 
the  weaver's  or  loom  beam.  This  beam  is  placed  in  position  at  the 
back  of  the  loom.  The  ends  of  the  warp  yarn  are  passed  through 

[33] 


34  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

the  harnesses  and  reed,  and  fastened  to  the  taking-up  roller  in  front. 
In  the  meantime  the  filling  yarns,  or  picks,  have  been  wound  from 
the  skeins  or  cones  and  rewound  on  small  bobbins  which  are  placed 
in  the  shuttles  on  the  loom.  The  loom  is  now  ready  to  start  weaving. 

The  variety  of  operations  performed  by  a  loom  in  weaving  a 
piece  of  cloth  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  weave.  In  the  case 
of  a  fancy  weave  these  operations  are  often  bewilderingly  intricate. 
Reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,  however,  the  process  of  weaving  may 
be  described  briefly  as  follows:  The  shuttles  fly  back  and  forth, 
weaving  the  weft  threads  under  and  over  the  warp  threads  as  the 
latter  are  raised  and  lowered  by  the  harnesses.  After  each  passage 
of  the  shuttle  the  reed  is  carried  forward,  pushing  the  weft  thread 
into  place — thus  tightening  up  the  weave,  so  to  speak.  According 
as  the  cloth  is  woven  it  is  drawn  off  and  rolled  by  the  taking-up 
roller. 

In  the  modern  mill  all  the  weaving  operations  are  performed 
automatically.  The  modern  loom  includes  devices  for  automatically 
stopping  the  loom  when  a  warp  or  weft  thread  breaks  and  for  auto- 
matically recharging  and  threading  the  shuttles  when  the  weft 
threads  break  or  are  exhausted.  In  the  United  States  the  most 
widely  used  automatic  loom  is  the  Northrup  loom.  Fancy  cloths  of 
intricate  weave  and  design  are  usually  woven  on  Jacquard  looms. 
The  operations  of  the  Jacquard  loom  are  controlled  automatically 
by  perforated  cards,  punched  according  to  the  design — somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  a  player-piano. 

With  certain  exceptions,  which  will  be  referred  to  later,  most 
cotton  cloths  come  from  the  loom  in  a  rough,  unfinished  state.  They 
are  of  a  dirty  yellow-gray  color,  contain  a  number  of  impurities, 
and  are  rather  sticky  from  the  sizing  with  which  the  warp  yarns 
have  been  treated.  In  this  state  they  are  known  as  gray  goods. 
Some  mills  have  their  own  finishing  departments  and  finish  their 
own  gray  goods ;  but  as  a  rule  the  finishing  processes  are  conducted 
by  independent  firms  which  bleach,  dye,  print  or  otherwise  finish 
gray  goods  on  contract  either  for  commission  agents  representing 
mills  or  for  middlemen  known  as  converters. 

The  converter  is  a  very  important  factor  in  the  cotton  goods  trade 
and  the  one  who  assumes,  perhaps,  the  major  share  of  its  risks. 
He  furnishes  the  new  styles,  and,  according  to  his  judgment  of  what 
will  be  in  demand — reinforced  to  some  extent  by  advance  orders 
from  jobbers,  cutters  and  retailers — he  orders  his  gray  goods  from 
the  weaving  mill.  These  he  has  sent  to  a  finishing  plant  to  be 


From  Yarns  to  Gray  Goods  35 

finished  in  accordance  with  his  ideas.  So  that,  in  a  sense,  the 
weaver  and  finisher  are  both  really  contractors  for  the  converter. 
Often  the  converter  is  the  selling  agent  for  a  number  of  mills  and 
practically  their  banker.  He  sells  to  the  cutting-up  trade,  the  jobber 
and  the  retailer.  Some  jobbers  are  also  converters. 

While  the  gray  goods  mills  usually  weave  on  contract  for  the 
converter,  they  very  often  make  goods  for  stock  in  order  to  keep 
the  plants  running.  These  goods  are  disposed  of  either  through 
mill  agents  or  through  a  class  of  merchants  known  as  gray  goods 
brokers.  Besides  handling  spot  goods,  the  gray  goods  brokers  fre- 
quently act  as  intermediaries  between  the  converter  and  the  mill, 
buying  for  the  former  on  a  small  commission.  As  these  brokers 
are  in  constant  touch  with  the  mills,  and  know  from  day  to  day 
what  the  mills  have  to  oifer  and  at  what  prices,  it  is  most  convenient 
for  mills  and  converters  to  transact  business  through  them.  So, 
just  as  there  is  an  open  yarn  market,  there  is  also  an  open  market 
for  gray  goods,  subject  to  constant  fluctuations. 

Since  the  gray  cloth  market  follows  closely  the  fluctuations  in 
yarns  and  raw  cotton,  and  since  it  is  directly  influenced  by  the 
demand  for  finished  goods,  it  is  a  fairly  reliable  indication  of  the 
trend  of  the  cotton  goods  market  as  a  whole.  It  should  be  borne 
in  mind,  however,  that  gray  goods  brokers,  like  cotton  brokers,  are 
apt  to  buy  and  sell  goods  on  speculation ;  so  that  in  periods  of  specu- 
lative activity  the  rise  and  fall  of  prices  on  the  gray  goods  market 
is  not  always  a  sure  guide  to  the  real  condition  of  supply  and  demand. 
But,  with  this  reservation,  the  movement  of  prices  in  the  gray  goods 
market  generally  prefigures  pretty  accurately  the  movement  of  prices 
in  finished  cottons  and  is,  therefore,  worth  watching  by  those  who 
wish  to  follow  the  general  market  trend. 

Gray  goods  are  quoted  in  the  market  according  to  width,  weight, 
count  or  construction  and  general  character.  The  count  or  construc- 
tion of  a  cloth  means  the  number  of  warp  threads,  or  ends,  and  the 
number  of  weft  threads,  or  picks,  to  the  square  inch.  A  typical 
example  is  the  SSVk-inch,  5.35-yard,  64x60  print  cloth,  which  is 
generally  used  as  a  basis  for  market  quotations  in  much  the  same 
way  as  middling  upland  is  used  for  raw  cotton  quotations — although 
it  might  better  be  described  as  a  standard  market  indicator.  This 
is  a  print  cloth  38V2  inches  wide,  weighing  5.35  yards  to  the  pound, 
and  containing  64  ends  and  60  picks  to  the  square  inch.  Print  cloths 
are  so  called  because  they  are  used  chiefly  for  printed  goods,  such 
as  prints  and  percales. 


36  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  construction  of  a  cloth  does 
not  define  its  character  or  value.  Thus  a  64  x  60  might  be  a  print 
cloth,  a  voile  or  a  twill.  The  character  of  the  cloth  depends  not 
only  on  the  construction  but  on  the  weight  and  quality  of  the  yarns. 
Generally  speaking,  the  higher  the  construction  the  higher  the  count 
of  the  yarns  used  in  it;  and,  as  already  explained,  the  count — also 
generally  speaking — indicates  the  quality  of  the  yarn.  But  there 
are  many  exceptions  to  this.  For  example,  an  eponge,  which  is  a 
comparatively  expensive  cloth,  may  be  made  in  a  66  x  24  construction. 
This  is  a  very  low  construction  as  to  the  pick;  but  it  is  due  to  the 
special  character  of  the  cloth,  which  calls  for  a  very  soft  filling 
yarn  of  good  quality,  especially  made  for  the  purpose.  Napped 
goods,  to  cite  another  example,  are  usually  made  with  a  soft,  low- 
count  filling  yarn — less  than  16's — in  order  to  permit  of  napping. 
Making  allowance  for  such  exceptions,  the  construction  of  a  cloth 
indicates  roughly  its  quality. 

Gray  goods  are  divided  into  six  main  classes:  Print  cloths, 
from  which  the  staple  printed  fabrics  are  made;  sheetings;  sateens; 
twills;  combed  yarn  goods,  from  which  are  made  fine  fabrics  like 
lawns  and  dimities?  and  fancies,  such  as  silk  mixtures.  There  are 
various  other  cloths  which  do  not  come  under  any  of  these  heads, 
but  these  are  the  chief  classes  of  gray  goods  quoted  in  the  market. 
Heavy  cottons,  such  as  ducks,  drills,  denims  and  tickings,  are  usually 
quoted  by  weight.  Print  cloth  constructions  vary  from  44x40's  to 
80x80*s,  and  their  weight  varies  from  four  yards  in  the  pound  to 
10.55  yards  in  the  pound.  Sheeting  constructions  run  from  44  x  40's 
to  56  x  60's  and  the  weight  runs  from  2.85  to  6.15  yards  in  the  pound. 
Combed  yarn  cloths  will  run  from  76  x  72's  to  96  x  100's  or  higher, 
while  sateens  will  run  from  64  x  72's  to  72  x  120's.  The  most  familiar 
twill  constructions  are  64  x  64,  68  x  76  and  96  x  64.  Fancies  are 
usually  of  high  construction,  such  as  96  x  96  or  96  x  100. 

Given  the  width,  weight  and  construction  of  a  cloth  it  is  easy 
to  determine  roughly  the  count  of  yarn  used  in  it.  The  number  of 
ends  and  picks  in  a  square  inch,  multiplied  by  the  width  of  the  cloth, 
gives  the  number  of  yards  of  yarn  in  a  yard  of  the  cloth.  To  this 
must  be  added  about  10  per  cent  to  allow  for  take-up  of  the  yarn 
in  weaving.  Multiplying  the  number  of  yards  of  yarn  in  a  yard  of 
cloth  by  the  number  of  yards  of  cloth  to  the  pound,  we  get  the 
number  of  yards  of  yarn  in  a  pound  of  the  cloth.  Dividing  this  by 
840,  as  explained  in  the  preceding  chapter,  we  get  approximately 
the  count  of  the  yarn.  Thus  we  would  find  that  a  SS^-mch,  5.35- 


From  Yarns  to  Gray  Goods  37 

yard,  64  x  60  print  cloth  would  contain  about  a  29's  yarn.    This  is 
near  enough  for  a  rough-and-ready  calculation. 

As  already  mentioned,  the  64x60  print  cloth,  either  in  the  27- 
inch  or  38^-inch  width,  is  generally  taken  as  the  standard  market 
indicator,  and  prices  on  this  construction  over  a  given  period  will 
reflect  pretty  closely  the  general  trend  of  the  market.  Fall  River 
and  New  York  are  the  principal  gray  goods  markets.  It  is  well  to 
bear  in  mind  that  prices  in  the  New  York  market  are  often  quoted 
on  Southern  goods  or  goods  in  second  hands  and  are  apt  to  be  lower 
than  New  England  mill  quotations. 


CHAPTER  VH  \ 

THE  BASIC  WEAVES 

AS  already  explained,  the  character  of  a  piece  of  cotton  goods 
is  determined  largely  by  the  count  of  the  yarn  and  the  con-  * 
struction  of  the  cloth.    But  for  the  purpose  of  general  classi- 
fication there  is  a  still  more  fundamental  distinction,  and  that  is  the 
nature  of  the  weave.    All  kinds  of  woven  textiles,  including  cotton 
goods,  are  loosely  classified  under  eight  main  heads,  according  to 
the  manner  in  which  they  are  woven.     This  classification  may  be 
stated  as  follows :     Plain  weaves,  twill  weaves,  satin  weaves,  figured 
weaves,  pile  weaves,  gauze  or  leno  weaves,  lappet  weaves  and  double-  \ 
cloth  weaves. 

Any  one  of  these  classifications  may  include  many  different  quali- 
ties of  cloth,  and  any  one  of  them  may  be  varied  so  as  to  produce  a 
large  variety  of  different  effects.  But  in  judging  the  character  of 
a  piece  of  cloth  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to  determine  the  nature  of 
the  weave,  and  this,  as  a  rule,  can  be  done  very  easily  by  simply 
looking  at  it  either  with  the  naked  eye  or  through  a  magnifying 
glass. 

The  most  important  and  the  most  common  of  all  weaves  is  the 
plain  weave.  In  plain  weaving  the  weft  or  filling  thread  is  passed 
at  right  angles  over  and  under  alternate  warp  threads.  This  pro- 
duces a  smooth,  plain  cloth  of  fairly  open  texture.  The  closeness 
of  the  texture  and  the  smoothness  of  the  surface  depend  to  a  large 
extent  upon  the  kind  of  yarns  used,  as  well  as  on  the  nature  of  the 
finish. 

But  generally  the  texture  of  a  plain  woven  cloth  is  sufficiently 
open  to  permit  one  to  note  on  close  examination  how  each  thread 
passes  over  and  under  alternate  threads.  A  variety  of  patterns 
can  be  introduced  in  this  weave  by  using  yarns  of  different  sizes  or 
yarns  dyed  in  different  colors.  For  instance,  corded  effects  in 
stripes  or  checks  may  be  produced  by  varying  the  size  of  the  yarns 
in  the  warp  or  weft  or  both.  Colored  stripes  are  produced  by 
using  bands  of  dyed  yarns  in  the  warp,  and  checks  and  plaids  are 
produced  by  using  dyed  yarn  in  the  warp  and  filling.  Obviously  it 
is  possible  by  using  dyed  yarns  to  obtain  an  almost  unlimited  number 
of  different  colors.  The  plain  weave  is  used  for  a  large  proportion 
of  the  familiar  staple  cotton  goods,  including  prints,  percales,  , 

[38] 


The  Basic  Weaves  39 


ginghams,  sheetings,  muslin,  batiste,  longcloth,  cambric,  voile,  or 
gandy,  lawn,  mull,  nainsook,  outing  flannel,  seersucker,  shirtings, 
etc.    Poplins,  piques  and  Bedford  cords  are  also  plain  weaves  as  a 
rule,  the  corded  effect  being  obtained  by  using  larger  yarns. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  plain  weave  is  the  twill  weave,  which 
may  be  distinguished  by  the  fact  that  it  produces  lines  or  ribs  run- 
ning diagonally  across  the  clo.th.  Serge  is  the  outstanding  example 
of  this  kind  of  weave,  but  it  is  also  used  very  largely  for  cotton 
goods.  In  the  twill  weave  the  filling  threads  do  not  pass  over  and 
under  the  warp  threads  at  regular  intervals,  as  in  the  plain  weave, 
but  at  irregular  intervals  of  two,  three,  four,  five  or  more  threads. 
For  instance,  the  filling  threads  might  pass  over  one  warp  thread 
and  under  three,  four,  five  or  six,  or  they  might  pass  over  two  and 
under  one,  two,  three  or  four.  Every  time  the  filling  shuttle  goes 
through  it  passes  over  and  under  a  different  set  of  warp  threads. 
This  is  what  gives  the  diagonal  rib  effect. 

The  combinations  of  this  weave  can  be  varied  almost  indefinitely, 
so  as  to  produce  not  only  diagonal  rib  effects  but  curved,  waved  and 
zig-zag  ribs,  such  as  herringbones.  Additional  effects  can  be  intro- 
duced, as  in  the  plain  weave,  by  using  yarns  of  different  sizes  or 
dyed  yarns  of  different  colors.  The  original  and  principal  purpose 
of  twill  weaving  is  to  make  a  strong  heavy  cloth,  for  it  is  possible 
in  this  way  to  weave  a  closer,  firmer  texture  than  in  the  plain  weave. 
Thus  its  most  familiar  examples  in  the  cotton  trade  are  such  goods 
as  tickings,  drills  and  jeans.  But  it  is  also  used  largely  to  produce 
various  patterns,  such  as  herringbones. 

The  satin  weave  is  really  a  variation  of  the  twill  weave,  except 
that  it  is  done  in  such  a  way  as  to  conceal  the  twill  structure  and 
produce  a  very  smooth  surface.  This  effect  is  obtained  by  passing 
the  filling  threads  over  or  under  a  large  number  of  warp  threads — 
anywhere  from  six  to  twelve.  If,  for  example,  the  filling  threads  are 
passed  under  one  warp  thread  and  over  eight  or  ten,  the  result  is 
that  most  of  the  filling  is  on  the  face  of  the  cloth.  Such  cloths  are 
called  filling-face  satin  weaves.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  filling 
threads  are  passed  over  one  warp  thread  and  under  six  or  eight 
warp  threads,  the  result  is  that  most  of  the  warp  is  on  the  face 
of  the  cloth.  These  are  called  warp-face  satin  weaves. 

In  all  satin  weaves  the  interlacing^  of  the  warp  and  filling 
threads  are  arranged  at  irregular  intervals,  so  that  no  sign  of  a  line 
or  twill  appears  on  the  face  of  the  cloth.  While  the  satin  weave  is, 
of  course,  most  common  in  silk,  it  is  also  used  to  a  large  extent  in 


40  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

cotton  goods.  Various  kinds  of  cotton  goods  made  with  this  weave 
are  familiar  under  the  general  name  of  sateen.  It  is  used,  as  well, 
for  cotton-filled  worsteds,  showing  practically  all  the  worsted  warp 
on  the  surface,  and  for  cotton-warp  silks,  showing  practically  all  the 
silk  filling  on  the  surface.  The  latter  cloth  is  often  referred  to  as 
a  cotton-back  satin. 

Figured  weaves  are  the  most  intricate  of  all,  and  are  susceptible 
of  endless  variations.  As  the  name  indicates  they  are  used  to  achieve 
figured  patterns  in  the  cloth — usually  elaborate  and  complicated 
patterns,  as  the  more  simple  patterns  can  be  obtained  by  more  sim- 
ple means.  A  typical  example  of  a  figured  weave  is  a  silk  brocade. 
It  is  often  called  a  Jacquard  weave  because  it  is  done  on  a  Jacquard 
loom.  The  operations  of  this  loom,  as  pointed  out  in  a  previous 
chapter,  are  controlled  by  perforated  cards,  something  after  the 
manner  of  a  player  piano.  The  Jacquard  can  weave  anything,  from 
a  plain  fabric  to  the  most  elaborate  brocade,  but  it  is  usually  em- 
ployed only  to  weave  the  most  intricate  patterns.  Less  intricate 
patterns  are  woven  on  dobby  looms,  while  plain,  twill  and  satin 
weaves  are  woven  on  plain  looms.  The  best  example  of  a  figured 
weave  in  cotton  goods  is  a  cotton  damask. 

The  pile  weave  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  separate  weave,  al- 
though it  is  generally  referred  to  as  such,  but  is  a  variation  of  the 
plain  weave.  There  are  various  ways  of  weaving  a  pile  fabric,  the 
most  common  being  what  is  known  as  a  warp  pile.  In  weaving  a 
warp  pile  fabric  an  extra  set  of  warp  threads  is  introduced.  These 
are  formed  into  loops,  as  the  weaving  proceeds,  by  being  carried 
across  wires  laid  parallel  to  the  filling  threads.  Subsequently  the 
loops  are  either  left  on  the  cloth  as  they  are,  or  they  are  cut  open 
at  the  top.  In  the  latter  case  the  goods  are  then  sheared  in  order 
to  make  the  pile  smooth  and  even.  Another  way  of  weaving  a  pile 
fabric  is  with  what  is  known  as  a  weft  pile.  In  this  method  extra 
filling  threads  are  placed  in  the  shuttles.  These  are  not  carried 
all  the  way  across  the  cloth,  like  the  regular  filling  threads,  but  are 
floated  to  the  surface  at  intervals,  making  a  loose  pile  which  is  sub- 
sequently sheared. 

Still  another  way  of  making  a  pile  fabric  is  by  means  of  a  double- 
cloth  weave,  which  will  be  described  later.  Familiar  examples  of 
pile  fabrics  are  plushes,  velvets,  velveteens  and  corduroys.  The 
most  familiar  example  of  a  warp  pile  fabric  in  which  the  loops  are 
left  uncut  is  Terry  cloth,  or  Turkish  toweling.  Somewhat  similar 
to  pile  fabrics  are  what  are  known  as  napped  goods,  such  as  flan- 


©PEKING  THE  BALES  OF  RAW  COTTON  DELIVERED  AT  THE  MlLL  AND  FEEDING 
IT  TO  THE  FIRST  MACHINES  IN  THE  YARN  MAKING  PROCESS 


The  Basic  Weaves  41 


nelette,  although  they  are  produced  in  a  different  way.  They  are 
made  in  a  plain  weave  with  a  filling  of  soft  yarn.  After  being 
woven  they  are  passed  through  a  machine  which  teases  or  combs 
up  the  filling  yarn,  giving  the  cloth  a  fluffy  napped  appearance. 

The  double  cloth  weave  is  also  really  a  variation  of  the  plain 
weave.  It  is  done  by  weaving  two  cloths  on  the  loom  at  the  same 
time  and  combining  them  into  one  by  interlacing  some  of  the  warp 
and  filling  threads  of  one  into  the  other  during  the  process  of  weav- 
ing. The  double-cloth  weave  is  used  for  a  variety  of  purposes.  It 
is  used  to  produce  a  double-face  cloth,  or  a  cloth  with  different  pat- 
terns on  each  side,  or  a  heavy  cloth  with  a  cheaper  material  on  the 
back  than  on  the  face.  It  is  also  used  a  good  deal  in  making  velvets 
and  the  shorter-pile  plushes — the  pile  being  formed  by  the  inter- 
lacing of  threads  between  the  two  cloths.  In  this  case  the  cloths 
are  cut  apart  by  a  knife  after  being  woven.  The  double-cloth  weave 
is  not  much  used  in  cotton  goods,  except  for  making  tubular  cloths, 
such  as  pillow  cases.  These,  of  course,  are  not  connected  through- 
out the  piece  in  the  manner  of  the  regular  double  cloths. 

The  gauze  or  leno  weave,  however,  is  used  to  a  considerable 
extent  in  the  making  of  cotton  goods,  especially  fancies.  In  this 
weave  the  warp  threads  are  not  laid  parallel  to  one  another  but 
are  made  to  cross  one  another  in  various  ways.  There  are  two  sets 
of  warp  threads:  the  ground  warp,  in  which  the  threads  are  laid 
parallel  to  one  another,  and  another  set  of  warp  threads,  known  as 
the  douping,  which  are  intertwined  among  the  regular  warp  threads 
as  the  weaving  proceeds.  This  produces  a  loose,  open  fabric,  like 
lace  or  netting.  A  typical  example  is  a  marquisette.  The  leno 
weave  is  used  a  good  deal  for  making  open-work  patterns  on  plain 
goods.  Fabrics  made  partly  with  a  plain  weave  and  partly  with  a 
leno  weave  are  usually  referred  to  in  the  trade  as  lace  cloths. 

The  lappet  weave  is  not  so  much  a  weave  as  a  device  for  work- 
ing simple  embroidered  figures  into  plain  or  gauze  weaves.  It  is 
really  an  imitation  embroidery.  By  means  of  needles  placed  in  a 
sliding  frame  the  figures  are  stitched '  into  the  warp  during  the 
process  of  weaving.  It  is  an  easy  and  economical  way  of  producing 
small,  simple  raised  patterns,  such  as  dots  and  squares  and  broken 
stripes.  A  typical  example  of  a  lappet  weave  is  a  dotted  Swiss. 

Variations  in  the  weave  are  one  of  the  most  important  ways  of 
achieving  designs  in  fabrics.  The  possible  number  of  such  varia- 
tions is  almost  infinite.  In  addition,  designs  are  achieved  in  equal 
variety  by  different  methods  of  dyeing,  printing  and  finishing. 


CHAPTER  VHI 
FINISHING  PROCESSES 

WITH  the  exception  of  coarse  brown  sheetings,  which  are  sold 
to  consumers  in  an  unfinished  state,  gray  goods  have  to  go 
through  various  finishing  processes  before  they  are  ready 
for  consumption.  There  are,  however,  certain  classes  of  goods 
which  come  from  the  loom  almost  finished,  and  do  not  have  to  go 
through  the  intermediate  stage  of  gray  goods.  These  cloths  are  made 
from  yarns  which  have  been  subjected  to  certain  finishing  processes 
before  being  woven.  The  largest  use  of  finished  yarns  is  for  lace 
and  hosiery;  but  they  are  also  used  in  many  woven  fabrics,  such 
as  voiles,  crepes  and  silk  mixtures,  in  all  yarn-dyed  fancies,  and  in 
all  yarn-dyed  staples,  like  ginghams. 

One  important  reason  for  dyeing  fabrics  in  the  yarn  rather  than 
in  the  piece  is  that  dyed  yarns  permit  the  weaving  of  colored  pat- 
terns, such  as  checks,  plaids,  stripes  and  figures,  which  are  faster 
when  woven  than  when  printed.  Another  reason  is  that  the  cotton 
fiber  has  little  affinity  for  dyestuffs,  and  it  is  impregnated  more  read- 
ily in  the  yarn  than  in  the  piece;  so  that,  asj  a  general  rule,  yarn 
dyeing  is  preferable  for  fabrics  which  are  subjected  to  much  sun- 
light or  washing. 

Strictly  speaking,  the  term  "finishing"  includes  only  certain 
final  treatments  which  are  given  to  cloth  before  it  is  ready  for  the 
market.  These  treatments  are  somewhat  similar  in  nature  to  those 
given  by  a  laundryman  to  clothes  after  they  have  been  washed,  in 
order  to  produce  a  finish  that  is  soft  or  stiff,  dull,  or  glossy.  The 
number  of  different  finishes  applied  to  cotton  goods  is  almost  be- 
yond count;  but  they  may  be  loosely  classified  under  the  heads  of 
stretching,  sizing  and  calendering.  Each  of  these  processes  is  done 
in  a  variety  of  ways,  according  to  the  kind  of  finish  that  is  desired. 

While  in  the  strict  sense  the  term  finishing  includes  only  such 
processes,  it  is  generally  used  for  convenience  to  include  also  the 
processes  of  bleaching,  dyeing,  gassing  or  singeing,  and  mercerizing, 
which  are  applied  both  to  yarns  and  to  fabrics  in  the  piece. 

Gassing  consists  in  singeing  off  the  fuzz  on  the  yarn  so  as  to 
make  it  smooth  and  bright.  It  is  done  by  passing  the  yarn  or  fab- 
ric through  the  blue  part  of  the  flame  from  a  Bunsen  gas  burner. 
Sometimes  it  is  done  electrically,  using  a  charged  plate  instead  of 

[42] 


Finishing  Processes  43 


the  gas  flame.  Fabrics  which  are  not  woven  from  gassed  yarns  are 
usually  gassed  before  bleaching  when  a  smooth,  lustrous  finish  is 
desired.  The  best  results  are  obtained  when  the  gassing  is  done  to 
the  yarn.  Gassed  yarns  are  used  for  the  most  part  in  lace  and  hos- 
iery, but  there  is  also  a  considerable  use  of  them  in  woven  fabrics, 
such  as  voiles,  silk  mixtures  and  mercerized  cloths. 

Mercerizing  has  come  to  be  one  of  the  most  important  of  all  fin- 
ishing processes.  It  takes  its  name  from  John  Mercer,  an  English 
calico  printer,  who  patented  the  process  in  1850.  Mercer's  process 
was  designed  simply  to  give  strength  to  cotton  fabrics.  In  1890, 
however,  some  German  textile  makers  tried  stretching  the  cloth  in 
order  to  overcome  the  shrinkage  caused  by  the  mercerizing  process 
and  discovered  accidentally  that  stretching  gave  the  cloth  a  beauti- 
ful lustrous  finish.  Since  then  the  use  of  mercerization  'has  grown 
rapidly,  and  various  improvements  have  been  made  in  the  process, 
until  to-day  some  of  the  finest  mercerized  cottons  can  be  distin- 
guished from  silk  only  by  the  eye  of  an  expert. 

Mercerization  is  done  by  soaking  the  yarns  or  cloth  in  a  caustic 
alkali  solution;  usually  caustic  soda  and  sometimes  caustic  potash 
or  sodium  peroxide.  The  action  of  the  alkali  on  the  cotton  fiber  is 
three-fold:  (1)  It  causes  the  fiber  to  shrink  in  length;  (2)  it  causes 
the  fiber  to  swell  up  like  a  tire  tube  when  air  is  pumped  into  it, 
thereby  making  the  fiber  round  instead  of  flat;  (3)  it  brings  about 
a  chemical  change  in  the  cellulose  which  gives  the  fiber  a  greater 
affinity  for  dyestuffs.  As  a  result  of  these  effects  mercerized  cotton 
is  stronger  and  more  easily  dyed  than  unmercerized  cotton.  The 
lustrous  finish  is  obtained  by  stretching.  The  greater  the  stretch 
the  greater  the  lustre,  as  a  general  thing.  But  as  stretching  beyond 
a  certain  point  weakens  the  fiber,  the  finest  mercerized  yarns  are 
made  from  Sea  Island  and  long-staple  Egyptian  cottons,  which  have 
a  high  natural  luster  and  can  be  subjected  to  a  good  deal  of  stretch- 
ing without  being  weakened. 

The  best  results  are  obtained  when  the  mercerization  is  done  to 
the  yarn.  But  fabrics  are  frequently  mercerized  in  the  piece,  espe- 
cially when  it  is  desired  to  produce  certain  special  effects.  For  in- 
stance, silk  stripes  or  other  similar  effects  can  be  produced  by  cov- 
ering the  fabrics  with  a  paste,  except  for  those  parts  on  which  the 
mercerized  design  is  to  be  produced,  and  then  immersing  the  fabric 
in  the  caustic  bath,  which  acts,  of  course,  only  on  the  exposed  parts. 
Part  mercerization  of  a  cotton  fabric  also  permits  of  interesting 
color  effects  when  the  fabric  is  dyed,  because  the  mercerized  part 


44  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

takes  the  dyes  more  deeply  than  the  unmercerized  part. 

Both  yarns  and  gray  goods  must  be  bleached  before  being  mer- 
cerized, dyed,  printed  or  otherwise  finished.  The  extent  of  the 
bleaching  depends  upon  whether  the  fabrics  are  to  be  used  as  white 
goods  or  are  to  be  dyed  or  printed.  For  white  goods  a  very  thorough 
bleaching  is  necessary.  For  dyed  or  printed  goods  the  amount  of 
bleaching  required  depends  upon  the  depth  of  the  color  that  is  to  be 
used.  When  goods  are  to  be  dyed  black,  for  instance,  scarcely  any 
bleaching  is  required,  whereas  a  thorough  bleaching  is  necessary 
for  goods  that  are  to  be  dyed  or  printed  in  light  colors.  For  con- 
venience, we  will  take  up  the  gray  goods  after  they  leave  the  loom 
and  follow  them  through  the  full  bleaching  process. 

The  first  operation  is  to  wet  the  cloth  and  lay  it  away  for  a  while 
in  order  to  soften  the  sizing  in  the  warp.  Subsequently  it  is  soaked 
in  a  weak  solution  of  caustic  soda  or  milk  of  lime,  in  order  to  re- 
move all  fats  from  it;  after  which  it  is  thoroughly  washed  in  pure 
water.  In  order  to  counteract  the  effects  of  any  alkali  that  may  re- 
main from  the  soda  or  lime  it  is  then  treated  to  what  is  known  as  the 
brown  sour  or  gray  sour,  which  is  a  bath  of  water  containing  sul- 
phuric or  hydrochloric  acid,  or  both.  It  is  then  washed  again  in 
pure  water. 

If  a  full  bleach  is  required  the  cloth  is  next  boiled  for  three 
hours  in  hot  lye  and  resin  soap,  which  takes  out  any  fats  or  acids 
that  may  remain  in  the  fiber.  After  another  washing  in  pure  water 
it  is  ready  for  the  real  bleaching  operation.  This  consists  of  soak- 
ing the  cloth  for  an  hour  or  two  in  a  bath  of  chloride  of  lime  solution, 
and  then  exposing  it  to  the  air.  It  is  the  action  of  the  oxygen  in  the 
air  and  water,  set  free  by  the  chloride  of  lime,  that  bleaches  the 
cloth.  Subsequently  the  cloth  is  washed  again  and  treated  to  a 
weak  acid  bath,  known  as  the  white  sour,  in  order  to  stop  further 
action  of  the  chloride.  Then  it  is  washed  in  pure  water,  spread  out, 
beaten,  stretched,  and  dried  over  hot  rollers.  It  is  now  ready  for 
finishing,  if  it  is  to  be  white  goods,  and  for  dyeing  and  printing  if 
it  is  to  be  colored  goods. 

There  are,  of  course,  a  great  variety  of  dyeing  processes,  depend- 
ing upon  the  nature  of  the  cloth,  the  purposes  for  which  it  is  going 
to  be  used  and  the  effects  which  the  dyer  wants  to  obtain.  In  gen- 
eral, whether  the  cloth  is  to  be  printed  or  dyed,  it  is  first  treated 
to  what  is  known  as  a  mordant,  a  substance  which  has  a  strong  affin- 
ity both  for  the  cotton  fiber  and  the  coloring  matter,  and  which 
helps  to  unite  them.  Sometimes,  as  in  extract  printing,  the  mor- 


Finishing  Processes  45 


dant  and  coloring  matter  are  applied  together.  The  mordant  is 
fixed  in  the  cloth  by  ageing  it  for  a  couple  of  days  in  a  moist  cham- 
ber and  then  treating  it  to  a  mixture  of  cow  dung  and  chalk,  or 
some  substitute  for  cow  dung.  Then  it  is  dyed  by  being  passed 
over  rollers  and  through  the  dye  liquor  until  the  desired  results 
have  been  obtained.  Subsequently  it  is  washed  very  thoroughly 
and  then  dried,  after  which  it  is  ready  for  finishing. 

When  the  cloth  is  printed  instead  of  dyed  it  is  passed  between 
copper  rollers  which  have  been  engraved  with  the  design  and  then 
covered  with  the  color  in  the  form  of  a  paste.  Where  more  than 
one  color  is  used  there  is  a  different  roller  for  each  color.  There 
are  many  styles  of  printing,  the  most  familiar  of  which  are  the  ex- 
tract or  discharge  method  and  the  resist  or  reserve  method.  In  the 
extract  or  discharge  method  the  cloth  is  first  dyed  and  then  printed 
with  designs  in  chemicals  which  cause  the  dye  to  fade  out  partly 
or  altogether  where  the  design  is  applied.  In  this  way  colored 
cloths  can  be  printed  with  white  or  different  color  designs.  By 
the  resist  method  the  cloth  is  first  printed  with  a  substance  which 
will  resist  the  action  of  the  dyestuff,  and  is  then  dyed — the  dye 
leaving  the  printed  design  unaffected.  Whatever  method  of  print- 
ing is  used,  the  cloth  after  being  printed  is  very  carefully  dried.  It 
is  then  steamed,  washed,  run  through  soapsuds,  washed  again  and 
dried  again;  after  which  it  is  ready  to  be  finished. 

The  finishing  processes,  as  already  mentioned,  are  in  a  general 
way  similar  to  those  applied  by  a  laundryman  to  clothes  after  they 
have  been  washed.  First  the  cloth  is  well  stretched.  Then  it  is 
treated  to  some  kind  of  sizing  or  starching,  according  to  the  sort  of 
finish  that  is  desired.  There  are  a  multitude  of  sizing  materials 
used,  including  wax,  various  fats  and  various  starches.  If  a  stiff 
or  glossy  finish  is  desired  the  cloth  is  calendered  by  heavy  rollers. 
Many  special  finishes  can  be  achieved  by  calendering.  For  ex- 
ample, the  cloth  may  be  stamped  with  various  designs  engraved  on 
the  calender  rollers. 

A  well-known  finish  achieved  in  this  way  is  what  is  known  as 
the  schreiner  finish.  In  schreinering  the  rollers  are  engraved  with  a 
multitude  of  very  fine  lines.  These  break  up  the  flat  surface  of  the 
cloth  into  a  multitude  of  different  planes,  and  the  resulting  light 
refractions  produce  the  effect  of  a  very  high  luster.  Mercerized 
cottons  with  a  schreiner  finish  are  as  lustrous  as  satin.  Other  fin- 
ishes beyond  number  can  be  and  are  obtained  by  slight  variations 
in  the  manner  of  sizing  and  calendering. 


CHAPTER  IX 
FROM  MILL  TO  RETAIL  STORE 

IN  criticizing  the  prices  of  cotton  goods — and  the  prices  of  cotton 
goods  are  almost  continually  under  criticism — it  is  a  very  com- 
mon habit  to  figure  raw  material  and  production  costs  and  ignore 
altogether  the  cost  of  distribution.  Nothing  could  be  more  mislead- 
ing, for  the  cost  of  distribution  forms  a  very  substantial  share  of 
the  price  at  which  cotton  goods  are  sold.  It  is  impossible  to  say, 
even  in  the  most  loosely  approximate  way,  how  large  this  share  is, 
because  it  varies  according  to  the  nature  of  the  goods,  according  to 
the  location  or  other  special  circumstances  of  the  mills  and  distribu- 
tors, and  according  to  the  method  in  which  the  goods  are  distributed. 
Generally,  it  may  be  said  that  methods  of  distribution  in  the  cotton 
goods  industry  are  complicated  and  expensive.  Probably  they  are 
too  complicated  and  expensive.  But,  in  any  case,  it  is  necessary  to 
know  what  they  are  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  real  understanding  of 
the  market. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  fact  that  comparatively  few  con- 
cerns conduct  all  the  processes  in  the  manufacture  of  cotton  goods 
from  spinning  to  finishing.  Many  mills  merely  spin  yarns  for  sale 
to  weavers.  Many  simply  weave  cloths  for  sale  in  the  gray  to  con- 
verters. Others  make  gray  goods  and  have  the  various  finishing 
processes  done  on  contract  for  them  by  outside  plants.  Still  others — 
many  of  them  very  large  plants — devote  themselves  exclusively  to 
the  processes  of  dyeing,  printing,  bleaching  or  finishing.  So  that 
there  is  often  a  considerable  distributing  cost  involved  in  the  manu- 
facture of  cotton  goods,  even  before  the  goods  are  put  upon  the 
market  in  a  finished  state. 

In  times  of  shortage  and  rising  prices  this  cost  is  apt  to  be 
enhanced  by  speculative  inter-sales  of  yarns  and  gray  goods  between 
brokers  and  converters.  Fortunately  the  cost  of  distributing  cotton 
goods  in  various  stages  of  manufacture  is  kept  down  by  the  compe- 
tition of  the  big  mills,  which  conduct  all  the  manufacturing  processes 
themselves.  These  mills  practically  set  the  market,  at  least  on 
staples.  In  other  words,  since  the  most  powerful  corporations  are 
the  ones  which  produce  most  economically,  the  prices  of  cotton 
goods  under  normal  conditions  are  kept  down  pretty  close  to  the 
basis  of  the  lowest  production  cost  by  the  pressure  of  competition. 

[46] 


From  Mill  to  Retail  Store  47 

,•• 

/^The  finished  product  of  the  mills  is  marketed  in  a  number  of 
different  ways.  Some  mills  sell  their  product  direct  to  jobbers, 
retailers  and  cutters.  But  the  great  majority  of  mills  market  their 
product  through  selling  agents,  who  are  usually  commission  mer- 
chants, often  referred  to  as  factors^  The  commission  house  system, 
as  it  is  practised  in  the  cotton  goods  industry,  is  peculiarly  Ameri- 
can, and  has  grown  out  of  certain  limitations  in  our  banking  methods 
which  have  made  it  difficult  for  mills  to  secure  adequate  direct 
banking  accommodation.  Obviously  the  financial  needs  of  a  cotton 
goods  manufacturer  are  very  great,  particularly  at  certain  seasons 
of  the  year.  He  needs  a  large  amount  of  capital,  not  only  for 
operating  expenses,  but  for  the  purchase  of  raw  material  and  for 
carrying  the  accounts  of  buyers  until  the  bills  are  paid.  These 
requirements,  as  a  general  rule,  are  supplied  by  the  commission 
merchant;  so  that  the  commission  merchant  is  primarily  the  banker 
of  the  cotton  goods  industry. 

Usually  the  commission  merchant  assumes  complete  or  partial 
selling  control  of  the  product  of  the  mill  or  mills  to  which  he  supplies 
financial  accommodation.  He  may  be  the  exclusive  selling  agent 
for  the  entire  product  of  one  big  mill,  or  for  the  entire  product  of 
several  mills,  or  for  certain  lines  of  different  mills.  Sometimes  a 
selling  agent  is  not  a  commission  merchant  and  does  not  furnish 
financial  accommodation  to  the  mills  he  represents;  and  sometimes 
the  commission  merchant  does  not  act  as  a  selling  agent,  but  simply 
finances  manufacturers,  selling  agents  and  converters.  As  a  general 
rule,  however,  the  functions  of  commission  merchant  and  selling 
agent  are  combined  in  the  one  concern.  The  manner  in  which  the 
selling  agent  operates  is  about  as  follows: 

Goods  are  consigned  to  him  by  the  mill  he  represents,  and  in 
return  he  advances  to  the  mill  a  specified  percentage  of  the  value 
of  the  goods — generally  about  75  per  cent  of  their  selling  price.  He 
charges  interest  on  these  loans  at  the  rate  of  6  per  cent.  Some  of 
his  profit  is  made  out  of  the  difference  between  this  rate  and  the 
market  rate  for  commercial  loans.  If  the  market  rate  is  higher 
than  6  per  cent  he  is,  of  course,  out  of  pocket  on  the  transaction. 
The  selling  agent  provides  facilities  for  receiving,  warehousing, 
displaying,  selling  and  shipping  the  goods,  as  well  as  for  financing 
and  collecting  buyers'  accounts.  When  the  goods  are  sold  he  credits 
the  mill  with  the  net  value  of  the  sale,  less  6  per  cent  interest  for 
the  time  remaining  until  the  bills  are  collected.  He  also  takes 
responsibility  for  the  credit  of  the  buyer. 


48  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

In  addition  to  interest  charge  on  loans  to  the  mill — which  may  or 
may  not  yield  him  a  profit — the  selling  agent  charges  for  his  services 
a  commission  on  the  net  sales.  The  size  of  the  commission  varies 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  goods.  Staples,  which  sell  in  very 
large  quantities,  are  handled  on  a  relatively  low  commission,  while 
fancies,  which  have  a  more  restricted  sale,  are  handled  at  a  higher 
rate.  Generally,  the  selling  agent's  commission  ranges  from  4  to  8 
per  cent. 

The  selling  agent,  of  course,  is  very  close  to  the  mill  he  repre- 
sents, and,  while  it  would  not,  perhaps,  be  correct  to  say  that  he 
dictates  the  market  policies  of  the  mill,  he  has  at  least  a  very  power- 
ful influence  upon  them.  He  advises  the  mill  concerning  styles  and 
prices,  and  his  intimate  touch  with  market  conditions,  combined  with 
his  control  over  the  finances  of  the  mill,  usually  makes  his  advice 
decisive.  Most  of  the  big  selling  agencies  are  located  in  New  York, 
although  many  mills  are  also  represented  by  important  selling 
agencies  in  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore  and  other  cities. 

Important  as  is  the  function  of  the  selling  agent,  it  may  be  said 
that,  on  the  whole,  the  most  important  primary  distributor  in  the 
cotton  goods  market  is  the  converter.  He  gets  his  name  from 
the  fact  that  he  buys  goods  in  the  gray  and  has  them  converted  into 
finished  goods  according  to  his  own  ideas.  He  is  really  a  cotton 
goods  merchant  who  is  also,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  manufacturer, 
although  he  does  no  actual  manufacturing  himself.  But  the  function 
of  the  converter  is  a  highly  important  one,  inasmuch  as  he  is  a  sort 
of  specialist  who  originates  new  ideas  and  designs  in  cotton  goods 
and  takes  the  risk  of  trying  them  out  on  the  market.  He  is  a  judge 
of  cloth  constructions  and  finishing  processes,  and  his  constant 
object  is  to  create  fabrics  of  superior  attractiveness  and  service- 
ability to  those  offered  by  his  competitors. 

Since  he  is,  more  than  any  other  distributor,  in  intimate  touch 
with  the  sources  of  production,  and  since,  unlike  the  selling  agent, 
he  is  not  tied  up  to  any  particular  mill  or  mills,  he  probably  exercises 
a  greater  influence  than  any  other  factor  on  the  trend  of  the  market. 
On  the  merchandising  side,  the  converter  is  really  a  jobber,  and 
very  often  a  converting  house  will  do  a  jobbing  business  in  other 
lines  besides  those  which  it  converts.  Many  of  the  big  jobbing 
houses  have  their  own  converting  departments  and  produce  goods 
for  sale  under  their  own  trade-marks.  Sometimes  the  selling  agent 
will  act  as  converter  for  the  goods  of  the  mills  he  represents,  but 
this  is  not  customary. 


DRAWING  FRAMES  AT  WORK 


From  Mill  to  Retail  Store 


As  a  general  rule,  the  first  step  taken  by  the  converter  in  pre- 
paring for  a  new  season  is  to  decide  on  the  styles  which  he  considers 
are  likely  to  be  good.  Some  of  these  styles,  of  course,  are  more  or 
less  staple.  Others  are  novelties  chosen  from  designs  furnished  by 
professional  designers.  Having  decided  on  the  styles  he  will  put 
out,  the  converter  orders  his  gray  goods,  either  from  samples  sub- 
mitted by  the  mill  or  according  to  samples  or  specifications  submitted 
by  himself  to  the  mill. 

In  the  case  of  staple  constructions  he  will  often  buy  spot  goods 
through  brokers  in  the  open  market.  Most  of  his  requirements, 
however,  are  covered  by  contract  with  the  mills  for  delivery  in 
instalments  over  a  period  running  anywhere  from  three  to  six 
months.  Usually  the  mills  require  a  minimum  order  of  about  30,000 
yards,  including  short  lengths  and  seconds,  which  must  not  exceed 
10  per  cent  of  the  entire  order.  Payment  is  made  for  each  instal- 
ment within  ten  days  after  delivery,  a  reduction  of  5  per  cent  from 
the  contract  price  being  made  for  seconds. 

Generally  these  goods  are  stored  at  the  converter's  risk  and 
subject  to  the  converter's  order,  either  at  the  mill  warehouse  or 
at  the  warehouses  of  the  finishing  plants  with  which  he  has  made 
arrangements  to  dye,  print,  bleach  and  otherwise  finish  the  goods. 
Often  the  converter  has  connections  of  long  standing  with  certain 
finishing  plants  to  which  he  gives  his  business  season  after  season; 
but  usually  at  the  beginning  of  each  season  he  calls  for  bids  from 
the  various  finishing  plants  equipped  to  do  the  kind  and  quality  of 
work  he  wants,  and  makes  his  contracts  for  the  season  with  those 
offering  the  best  terms.  The  contract  may  call  for  deliveries  in  any 
quantity,  but  it  is  customary  for  finishing  plants  to  require  a  mini- 
mum order  of  2000  to  3000  yards  for  bleached  or  dyed  goods  and  7500 
yards  for  printed  goods.  Deliveries  are  made  in  from  two  to  ten 
weeks,  depending  upon  the  rush  of  business  at  the  finishing  plant. 
Normally,  deliveries  can  be  made  within  six  weeks,  but  at  times 
the  finishing  plants  are  so  congested  with  work  that  converters  may 
have  to  wait  three  months  or  more  for  delivery.  Payment  is  made 
within  thirty  days  after  delivery. 

From  this  brief  resume  of  the  functions  of  the  converter  it  is 
easy  to  see  what  a  large  share  of  the  risk  in  distributing  cotton 
goods  is  carried  by  him.  He  must  take  the  risk  of  initiating  new 
styles,  and  some  of  these  are  bound  to  fall  flat  and  prove  a  dead  loss. 
He  must  also,  as  we  have  previously  remarked,  act  to  some  extent 
as  the  banker  for  the  mill,  the  finishing  plant  and  his  customers. 


50  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

.  Unlike  the  commission  merchant,  he  does  not  directly  finance  the 
mills.  But  he  pays  for  his  gray  goods  within  ten  days  after  delivery 
and  for  his  finishing  operations  within  thirty  days  after  delivery, 
while  he  may  not  collect  from  his  customers  until  as  long  as  ninety 
days  or  more  after  he  makes  delivery  to  them,  so  that  his  capital 
helps  more  or  less  to  carry  a  number  of  different  agencies  all  the 
time.  Necessarily  he  is  a  large  borrower  in  the  money  market, 
obtaining  his  accommodation  from  banks  or  commission  merchants, 
or  both.  And  this,  in  times  of  financial  instability,  adds  greatly  to 
the  risks  of  his  business. 

Whether  cotton  goods  are  put  upon  the  market  directly  by  the 
^  mill  or  through  the  mill  agent  or  converter,  they  pass  to  the  retailer 
and  thence  to  the  consumer  through  two  main  channels :  the  cutter- 
up  and  the  jobber.  Cutters-up  of  shirts,  waists,  underwear,  wash 
dresses,  overalls,  etc.,  are  large  consumers  of  cotton  goods,  and  as 
a  rule  they  buy  direct  from  the  mill  agent.  But  many  small  cutters, 
and  occasionally  some  large  ones,  buy  also  from  the  jobber.  Prac- 
tically all  retailers  buy  their  cotton  goods  from  the  jobber,  although 
some  of  the  big  department  stores  deal  directly  with  the  mill  agents. 
So  that  it  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  call  the  jobber  the  greatest 
of  all  agencies  in  the  distribution  of  cotton  goods.  He  performs  a 
function  which,  in  a  country  as  large  as  the  United  States,  is  prac- 
tically indispensable,  and  the  value  of  his  services,  both  to  the 
producer  and  the  retailer,  is  not  generally  appreciated  by  either. 

It  would  not  be  practicable  for  a  mill  or  selling  agent  to  keep 
in  close  touch  with  the  tens  of  thousands  of  retailers  in  the  country, 
to  estimate  their  requirements,  to  be  informed  of  their  credit  stand- 
ing, to  give  them  prompt  and  frequent  deliveries  of  limited  quan- 
tities. Neither  would  it  be  practicable  for  most  of  these  retailers — 
many  of  whom  are  located  hundreds  or  thousands  of  miles  away  from 
the  centers  of  production — to  keep  in  close  touch  with  all  the  pro- 
ducers, know  what  the  market  has  to  offer  and  maintain  without 
loss  the  considerable  assortments  which  even  a  very  small  retailer 
must  have  to  do  business. 

The  jobber,  however,  furnishes  the  solution  to  these  and  many 
other  distributing  problems.  /He  covers,  as  a  rule,  a  limited  territory 
which  he  knows  intimately.  He  is  informed  on  conditions  there; 
he  is  familiar  with  the  circumstances  and  requirements  of  his  cus- 
tomers; he  is  in  a  position  to  give  these  customers  more  thorough 
and  accommodating  service  than  the  manufacturer  could  possibly 
furnish.  One  of  his  most  valuable  services  to  the  retailer,  especially 


From  Mill  to  Retail  Store  51 


the  small  retailer,  is  the  maintenance  of  large  and  varied  stocks  out 
of  which  the  retailer  can  fill  in  at  short  notice.  He  serves  the 
manufacturer  by  placing  advance  orders  in  substantial  volume,  thus 
assuring  a  more  or  less  steady  volume  of  production,  and  by  relieving 
the  manufacturer  of  trouble  and  worry  over  a  multitude  of  small 
accounts.  As  the  orders  placed  by  the  jobber  are  large  in  volume 
and  are  an  anticipation  of  probable  demand  from  his  territory,  and 
as  he  usually  carries  the  retailer's  accounts  for  a  considerable  time 
after  he  has  paid  his  own  bills,  it  is  clear  that  he  bears,  with  the 
converter,  the  major  share  of  the  risk  of  distribution/ 

Jobbing  houses  are  located  in  practically  every  important  city 
in  the  country.  Among  the  chief  jobbing  centers  are  New  York, 
Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Pittsburgh,  Boston, 
St.  Paul,  Minneapolis,  Kansas  City,  St.  Joseph,  Omaha,  Denver,  Cin- 
cinnati, Columbus,  Cleveland,  Milwaukee,  Atlanta,  Savannah,  Rich- 
mond, Memphis,  Louisville,  Dallas,  Little  Rock,  New  Orleans,  Galves- 
ton,  Salt  Lake  City,  San  Francisco,  Spokane,  Portland  (Ore.),  and 
Los  Angeles.  Many  of  the  large  jobbers  sell  to  smaller  jobbers  as 
well  as  to  retailers,  and  many  large  retailers  also  do  a  jobbing 
business.  Normally  about  70  per  cent  of  the  jobbers'  sales  are  made 
through  road  salesmen,  the  remainder  being  made  by  mail  or  directly 
to  retail  buyers  who  visit  the  jobbers'  warerooms. 

In  normal  times  the  jobber  begins  placing  his  orders  in  May 
for  the  spring  of  the  following  year.  He  receives  deliveries  begin- 
ning in  November  and  extending  through  the  winter  and  early  spring. 
Sales  to  the  retailer  are  made  for  the  most  part  in  September  and 
October,  and  deliveries  begin  in  January.  Orders  for  fall  goods 
are  placed  normally  by  the  jobber  from  October  to  December  for 
delivery  in  June,  and  sold  to  the  retailer  from  March  to  May  for 
delivery  in  August  and  September.  During  the  last  few  years  the 
uncertainty  of  conditions  has  tended  to  discourage  buying  for  distant 
delivery,  and  very  little  spring  buying  has  been  done  by  jobbers 
before  September.  Both  jobbers  and  retailers  at  the  present  time 
show  a  tendency  to  reduce  as  much  as  possible  the  period  between 
purchase  and  delivery,  and  this  tendency  will  probably  continue 
until  conditions  become  more  stable. 


CHAPTER  X 
DICTIONARY  OF  COTTON  GOODS 

FOR  convenience  in  merchandising,  cotton  goods  are  divided 
into  a  number  of  different  classifications,  the  most  important 
of  which  are  Domestics,  Prints,  Wash  Goods,  White  Goods,  and 
Blankets  and  Flannels.  These  classifications,  however,  are  used  rather 
loosely.  Different  jobbers  and  retailers  make  different  classifications, 
according  to  the  arrangement  of  their  departments.  Retail  stores, 
especially,  are  apt  to  classify  cotton  goods  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Some 
will  classify  domestics,  blankets  and  flannels  together  under  the  head- 
ing of  Domestics,  some  will  classify  wash  goods  and  white  goods 
together  under  the  heading  of  Wash  Goods,  and  some  will 
simply  have  a  cotton  goods  department  which  includes  them 
all. 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  large  variety  of  classifications 
that  different  retailers  adopt.  Then  again,  a  given  cotton  fabric 
may  be  included  in  two  or  more  classifications.  For  example,  muslins 
are  included  in  both  Domestics  and  White  Goods,  ginghams  in  both 
Prints  and  Wash  Goods,  voiles  and  organdies  in  both  White  Goods 
and  Wash  Goods. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  Domestics  include  brown  and 
bleached  sheetings,  sheets,  pillow  cases,  tickings,  twills  and  drills; 
Prints  include  the  staple  low-end  printed  cloths,  percales,  staple  ging- 
hams, and  usually  the  heavier  colored  cottons,  such  as  chambrays, 
denims,  cheviots  and  the  like ;  Wash  Goods  include  the  finer-end  dress 
cottons,  such  as  fine  ginghams,  printed  voiles,  colored  organdies, 
crepes,  silk  mixtures  and  other  fancies;  White  Goods  include  fine 
bleached  cottons,  like  longcloths,  lawns,  nainsooks,  dimities,  white 
voiles  and  organdies,  dotted  Swisses,  mulls,  India  linens,  cambrics, 
damasks,  and  so  forth,  as  well  as  piques,  gabardines,  poplins,  Bedford 
cords  and  fancy  white  skirtings;  Blankets  and  Flannels,  as  the  name 
indicates,  include  cotton  blankets  and  napped  goods,  such  as  domets 
and  flannelettes.  In  addition  there  are  a  variety  of  drapery  and 
upholstery  fabrics  which  do  not  come  under  any  of  these  classifica- 
tions. 

Both  for  convenience  in  reference  and  because  of  the  difficulty  of 
adopting  a  definite  classification,  the  writer  has  deemed  it  expedient 
to  arrange  the  following  definitions  and  descriptions  of  cotton  goods 

[52] 


Dictionary  of  Cotton  Goods  53 

in  alphabetical  order  rather  than  to  group  them  under  different  head- 
ings. It  would,  of  course,  be  impracticable  to  include  in  this  list 
all  the  cotton  goods  on  the  market.  An  almost  unlimited  variety  of 
fabrics  are  sold  under  the  trade  marks  of  manufacturers,  converters 
and  jobbers,  and  these  are  added  to  every  season  by  numbers  of  novel- 
ties. Many  of  these  fabrics  differ  from  one  another  only  in  name,  or  in 
slight  details  of  quality,  construction  or  finish.  The  following  list, 
therefore,  takes  no  account  of  trademarked  fabrics,  or  novelties,  and 
includes  only  the  principal  staple  fabrics  familiar  to  the  American 
dry  goods  trade.* 

Albatross  Cloth  A  lightweight,  plain-woven  fabric  made  in  imita- 
tion of  the  worsted  fabric  of  the  same  name.  It  gets  its  name  from 
the  fact  that  its  soft  finish  resembles  the  downy  breast  of  the  albatross. 
Albatross  cloth  is  a  medium-grade  fabric  made  from  American  cotton 
of  fair  quality,  about  1-1/16  inches  in  staple.  The  yarn  count  is 
about  28's  warp  and  36's  filling,  and  the  construction  usually  about 
48x48.  It  is  generally  sheared,  singed,  bleached  or  dyed,  and  finished 
by  a  light  pressing,  without  any  sizing.  It  is  used  as  dress  goods. 

Apron  Checks  A  narrow  gingham  with  small  white  and  colored 
checks.  See  GINGHAM. 

Batiste  A  cotton  muslin  with  a  stiff  finish,  said  to  be  named  after 
one  Baptiste,  who  invented  it  in  Cambrai,  France,  in  the  13th  century. 
It  is  practically  the  same  fabric  as  cambric,  It  comes  in  various  widths 
and  in  various  qualities,  ranging  from  comparatively  coarse  to  very 
fine.  The  finest  grades  are  made  from  Sea  Island  cotton,  with  a  high 
count  of  yarn — for  instance,  100's  warp  and  ISO's  filling.  A  typical 
construction  would  be  100x98.  The  cheaper  grades  also  use  Sea  Island 
or  Egyptian  cotton  and  are  made  with  a  high-count  yarn,  as  high 
as  60's  warp  and  100's  filling.  A  typical  construction  for  a  cheaper 
batiste  would  be  56x52.  Batiste  is  woven  in  the  gray  with  a  plain 
weave,  and  is  subsequently  bleached,  heavily  sized  and  calendered. 
The  better  grades  are  used  for  dress  goods  and  lingerie,  while  the 
cheaper  grades  are  used  chiefly  for  linings  in  shirt  waists. 

Bedford  Cord  A  heavy  fabric  characterized  by  raised  cords  vary- 
ing from  1/20  to  1/4  inch  in  width  and  running  warp-wise  of  the  cloth. 
It  is  somewhat  similar  in  appearance  to  pique.  Usually  it  is  made 

*Por  much  of  the  technical  matter  embodied  in  the  ensuing  descriptions  the 
writer  is  indebted  to  "A  Cotton  Fabrics  Glossary,"  published  by  Frank  P.  Bennett 
&  Co.,  Inc.,  Boston,  Mass. 


54  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

with  a  plain  weave,  the  cord  effect  being  obtained  by  introducing 
coarse-count  warp  yarns  at  intervals  among  the  regular  warp  yarns. 
It  is  made  of  good  American  or  Egyptian  cotton,  1-1/16  to  1%  inches 
in  staple,  and  with  fairly  high-count  yarns  for  regular  warp  and  filling, 
such  as  40's  warp  and  60's  filling.  The  yarn  used  for  the  cord  would 
be  20's  or  lower.  As  the  fabric  is  heavy  it  has  a  very  close  construc- 
tion, varying  from  96x88  to  220x156.  It  is  generally  woven  in  the 
gray.  It  is  used  for  dresses,  skirts  and  sports  costumes. 

Beige  This  term  is  used  to  describe  a  fabric  made  with  a  mixed 
or  mottled  effect.  The  best  grades  are  made  of  wool  and  the  cheaper 
grades  of  cotton.  The  mottled  effect  is  obtained  by  dying  the  raw 
stock  and  mixing  it  with  undyed  stock  for  spinning;  but  in  cotton 
beige  this  effect  is  usually  obtained  by  printing  on  both  sides  of  the 
cloth.  It  is  a  plain-woven  cloth  made  from  medium-grade  American 
cotton.  The  yarn  count  runs  about  28's  warps  and  filling,  and  the 
construction  about  60x48.  It  is  finished  by  a  light  starching  and 
pressing,  and  has  a  soft  feel.  It  is  used  for  dress  goods. 

Bengaline  A  heavy  fabric  similar  to  poplin,  with  cords  running 
either  warp-wise  or  weft-wise.  It  is  made  of  silk,  silk  and  cotton,  or 
all  cotton.  There  are  many  qualities  of  bengaline  on  the  market, 
varying  much  in  character.  It  is  a  plain-woven  cloth,  made  with  a 
much  finer  and  higher-count  yarn  in  the  warp  than  in  the  filling,  and 
containing  about  twice  as  many  ends  as  picks  to  the  square  inch. 
It  may  contain  either  single-ply  or  2-ply  yarns,  and  may  be  either 
yarn-dyed  or  piece-dyed.  A  typical  construction  for  a  bengaline  would 
be  104x54,  and  typical  yarn  counts  would  be  2-ply  60's  warp  and  single- 
ply  35's  filling.  It  is  frequently  given  a  mercerized  finish.  Bengaline 
is  used  for  dress  goods,  shirtings,  draperies  and  hangings. 

Bengal  Stripes  A  strong,  durable  fabric  similar  to  a  gingham, 
and  differing  from  gingham  chiefly  in  having  colored  warp  yarns 
dyed  with  Bengal  indigo — although  aniline  dyes  are  frequently  used 
now.  The  cloth  was  originally  made  in  Bengal.  The  term  Bengal 
Stripes  is  sometimes  used  to  describe  blue  and  white  stripe  effects 
on  ginghams  or  percales,  similar  to  those  of  the  original  cloth.  The 
genuine  cloth  is  indigo-dyed  in  the  warp,  is  made  from  medium  grade 
American  cotton,  %  to  1  inch  in  staple,  and  with  a  low-count  yarn, 
such  as  9's  warp  and  16's  filling.  A  typical  construction  would  be 
64x48.  It  is  used  for  dresses  and  aprons. 

Bishop's  Lawn  A  fine,  light,  plain-woven  fabric,  with  a  bluish, 
starched  finish.  It  gets  its  name  from  the  fact  that  it  was  originally 


Dictionary  of  Cotton  Goods  55 

used  in  England  for  clergymen's  surplices.  Bishop's  lawn  is  usually 
made  from  Sea  Island  cotton,  as  high  as  1%  to  2  inches  in  staple, 
with  high-count  yarns,  such  as  100's  warp  and  120's  filling.  A  typical 
construction  would  be  104x112.  It  is  thoroughly  bleached,  given  a 
light  sizing  with  a  blue  starch,  and  calendered.  It  is  used  for  summer 
dresses  and  underskirts. 

Book  Muslin  This  name  is  generally  given  to  a  stiff,  rather  coarse 
muslin.  It  is  a  fabric  of  open  texture,  made  with  a  plain  or  leno 
weave,  from  medium-grade  cotton,  about  one  inch  in  staple,  and  with 
about  24's  yarn  in  warp  and  filling.  An  average  construction  would 
be  54x45.  It  is  piece-dyed  in  solid  colors,  heavily  sized,  and  frequently 
given  a  glazed  finish  by  passing  between  heated  rollers  in  the  calender- 
ing. It  is  used  chiefly  for  underlining  and  millinery. 

Brilliant e  A  lightweight  fabric,  with  small  geometrical  figures  on 
a  plain  ground.  It  is  made  from  long-staple  American  cotton,  with 
a  fine  warp  yarn  and  a  heavier  slack-twist  filling.  The  average  yarn 
count  is  about  50's  warp  and  30's  filling,  and  the  average  construction 
about  88x66.  It  is  made  with  a  Jacquard  weave.  Usually  it  is  mer- 
cerized or  printed.  It  may  have  either  a  soft  or  a  stiff  finish.  It  is 
used  for  dresses  and  shirtwaists. 

Calico  A  lightweight,  narrow,  closely-woven,  plain  cloth,  with 
figured  designs  printed  on  one  side,  usually  in  two  colors.  The  name 
was  originally  applied  to  all  sorts  of  cotton  goods,  and  is  derived 
from  the  city  of  Calicut  or  Calcutta,  whence  cotton  goods  were  first 
imported  into  England.  It  is  now  applied  in  England  to  plain,  bleached 
cloths,  heavier  than  muslin.  Printed  calico  is  made  from  medium- 
grade  American  cotton,  not  more  than  1-1/16  inches  in  staple,  with 
about  30's  single-ply  yarn.  The  average  construction  is  about  66x52. 
The  colors  on  calico  are  not  fast.  It  is  used  for  inexpensive  wrappers, 
shirtwaists,  and  the  like. 

Cambric      This  fabric  is  made  of  both  linen  and  cotton;  and,  as   v> 
already  mentioned,  cotton  cambric  is  practically  identical  with  batiste. 
It  is  a  stiff,  heavily-glazed  fabric,  with  a  smooth,  lustrous  surface. 
There  are  many  different  constructions  and  qualities  of  cambric,  but 
usually  it  is  equivalent  to  the  cheapest  grades  of  batiste.    The  average 
cambric  will  contain  good  American  cotton,  running  from  %  to  1% 
inches  in  staple,  and  will  be  made  with  yarns  counting  about  28's  or 
30's.     It  is  bleached  or  dyed  and  is  used  chiefly  for  linings.     It  gets 
its  name  from  the  town  of  Cambrai,  in  France,  where  it  was  originally, 
made. 


56  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

Canton  Flannel  A  medium  or  heavyweight  soft  cotton  flannel, 
with  a  twill  effect  on  one  side  and  a  long  nap  on  the  other.  It  is 
made  from  low-grade  American  cotton,  %  to  1  inch  in  staple,  and 
with  low-count  yarns,  running  from  10's  to  20's  in  the  warp  and  6's 
to  14's  in  the  filling.  The  filling  is  slack-twisted  to  permit  of  napping. 
The  average  construction  is  about  60x44.  It  is  piece-dyed  in  solid 
colors.  Canton  flannel  is  used  chiefly  for  underwear,  house  dresses, 
overcoat  pockets,  etc. 

Canvas  A  heavy,  coarse,  plain-woven  cloth.  It  is  made  from 
medium-grade  American  cotton,  about  1  inch  in  staple,  and  with 
multiple-ply  yarns,  such  as  6-ply  warp  and  9-ply  filling.  The  yarn 
count  is  usually  about  14's  warp  and  filling.  Canvas  is  often  made  with 
an  open  texture,  in  imitation  of  a  leno  weave,  for  use  as  a  ground 
for  embroidery.  The  heavier  canvas  is  used  for  bagging,  shoes,  tents, 
boat-coverings,  etc. 

Chambray  A  medium- weight,  plain-woven  cloth,  made  with  a 
colored  warp  and  white  filling.  The  color  of  the  warp  is  usually  blue. 
It  is  made  of  good-grade  American  cotton,  1  to  1-1/16  inch  in  staple, 
with  yarns  averaging  about  30's  warp  and  36's  filling.  A  typical 
construction  is  72x56.  Chambray  is  given  a  gingham  finish,  and  is 
used  for  working  shirts,  children's  rompers,  jumper  dresses,  etc. 

Chambray  Gingham  A  fine  gingham  with  a  lustrous  finish,  usu- 
ally made  in  plain  colors.  See  GINGHAM. 

Cheese  Cloth  A  thin,  lightweight  fabric  with  a  plain,  open  weave. 
It  varies  much  in  quality;  but  generally  it  may  be  described  as  a 
cheap  cloth  made  from  medium-grade  American  cotton,  1  inch  or  less 
in  staple,  and  with  yarns  running  from  28's  to  30's  in  the  warp  and 
36's  to  40's  in  the  filling.  It  is  usually  of  low  construction,  varying 
from  20x12  to  48x44.  Much  higher  constructions,  however,  are  some- 
times seen  in  some  grades  of  cheese  cloth.  It  is  given  practically  no 
finish.  This  fabric  has  numerous  uses.  It  is  used  for  wrapping 
cheese,  butter,  etc.,  as  well  as  for  underlining,  curtains,  flags,  fancy 
dress  costumes  and  decorations,  and  many  other  purposes. 

Cheviot  A  strong,  fairly  heavy,  ribbed  fabric  with  striped  pat- 
terns. It  is  usually  woven  with  a  plain  weave,  a  double  warp  yarn 
being  used  to  create  the  rib  effect.  Sometimes,  however,  it  is  woven 
with  a  twill  weave.  It  is  made  from  medium-grade  American  cotton, 
about  1  inch  in  staple,  with  coarse  yarns  counting  from  16's  to  22's 
warp  and  filling.  The  warp  yarns  are  given  a  heavy  size  and  are 


Dictionary  of  Cotton  Goods  57 

dyed  in  fast  colors,  generally  blue  or  brown.  The  filling  is  white. 
Cheviot  constructions  vary  considerably  according  to  the  quality  and 
the  weave.  Typical  constructions  would  be  40x36  and  62x52.  The 
cloth  is  given  no  finishing,  but  is  simply  sprinkled  and  pressed  after 
coming  from  the  loom.  It  is  used  for  workmen's  shirts. 

Chintz  A  fine,  plain-woven  fabric,  printed  with  patterns  in  bright 
colors  on  a  white  or  colored  ground,  and  characterized  by  a  glazed 
finish.  It  is  made  of  good-grade  American  cotton,  as  high  as  1% 
inches  in  staple,  with  high-count  yarns,  such  as  80's,  in  the  filling,  and 
comparatively  low-count  yarns,  such  as  44's,  in  the  warp.  A  typical 
construction  would  be  72x56.  Chintz  is  bleached  and  printed,  but 
never  dyed,  and  is  given  a  glazed  finish  by  passing  through  heated 
calender  rollers.  It  is  used  for  drapery  and  upholstery. 

Corduroy  A  pile  fabric  in  which  the  pile  forms  marked  warp-wise 
V  ribs.  The  rib  pile  is  obtained  by  using  one  set  of  warp  threads  and 
two  sets  of  soft-spun  filling  threads.  A  corduroy  may  contain  any- 
where from  160  to  500  picks  of  filling  and  from  36  to  48  ends  to  the 
square  inch.  It  is  made  usually  from  good-grade  cotton,  about  1 
inch  in  staple,  and  with  yarns  averaging  from  28's  to  30's  in  the 
warp  and  20's  to  24's  in  the  filling.  As  a  rule  it  is  piece-dyed,  but 
sometimes  it  is  printed.  It  was  formerly  used  exclusively  for  liveries, 
and  working  clothes,  but  it  is  now  used  extensively  for  sports  clothes,  ( 
negligees,  dresses  and  upholstery. 

Cottonade  A  coarse,  heavy  cloth,  made  usually  with  a  strong  single 
cotton  warp  and  a  cotton  shoddy  filling,  spun  on  the  woolen  principle. 
The  raw  cotton  used  in  it  is  of  low  grade  and  generally  mixed  with 
waste.  It  is  dyed  in  the  raw  stock  and  given  very  little  finishing. 
Cottonade  is  used  mostly  for  cheap  trousers. 

Crash  A  plain  or  twilled  fabric  finished  in  imitation  of  linen.  It 
is  made  from  medium-grade  cotton,  between  %  and  1-1/16  inches  in 
staple,  and  with  comparatively  coarse  yarns,  running  from  14's  to  20's 
warp  and  filling.  It  may  be  made  in  a  plain,  twill  or  fancy  weave 
from  gray  or  bleached  yarns.  Sometimes  it  carries  warp  stripes  of 
dyed  yarn.  It  is  finished  by  being  heavily  sized  and  calendered. 
Crash  is  used  for  toweling,  summer  clothes  and  carpet  coverings. 

Crepe  A  fabric  characterized  by  a  crinkly  surface.  Crepes  are 
made  in  a  great  variety  of  weights,  qualities  and  designs.  All  of  them 
have  the  peculiar  crinkly  appearance,  which  is  produced,  as  a  general 
rule,  by  using  yarns  with  an  extra  twist  which  makes  them  crumple 


58  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

up  when  they  are  unwound  off  the  bobbins  or  spools.  Crepe  yarns 
have  twice  to  three  times  the  amount  of  twist  given  to  yarns  for  other 
fabrics.  Sometimes  the  crepe  effect  is  produced  by  part  merceriza- 
tion  in  the  piece,  although  such  fabrics  are  strictly  seersuckers  (q.v.). 
In  the  more  expensive  crepes  the  yarns  used  for  filling  are  given 
both  a  regular  and  reverse  twist.  Usually  crepes  are  made  from  low- 
count  yarns,  to  allow  for  the  contraction;  but  the  quality  and  count 
of  the  yarns  vary  greatly  in  different  lines.  An  ordinary  crepe  of  fair 
quality  would  be  made  from  about  36's  warp  and  20's  filling.  The 
construction  of  such  a  cloth  would  be  about  5&  x  40.  Generally  crepes 
are  woven  in  the  gray,  with  a  plain  weave,  and  subsequently  printed 
or  dyed.  Sometimes  they  are  made  in  fancy  weaves.  Dyed  yarns  are 
often  used.  Many  fancy  crepes  have  a  silk  warp  and  cotton  filling. 
Crepes  are  used  for  dresses,  waists,  shirts,  kimonos,  negligees, 
draperies  and  many  other  purposes. 

W  Cretonne  A  soft  fabric  printed  in  bright  patterns  on  a  white  or 
colored  ground.  It  is  similar  to  chintz,  except  that  it  is  not  usually 
so  fine  in  quality  and  has  a  dull  instead  of  a  glazed  finish.  Ordinarily 
it  is  made  from  medium-grade  American  cotton  1  to  1*4  in.  in  staple, 
and  with  yarns  ranging  from  20's  to  40's  in  the  warp  and  7's  to  20's 
in  the  filling.  An  average  construction  is  about  52  x  40.  It  is  usually 
made  with  a  plain  weave,  but  sometimes  with  a  twill  or  satin  weave. 
Like  chintz,  it  is  used  for  drapery  and  upholstery. 

Crinkle  Cloth       See  SEERSUCKER. 

Damask  A  cotton  or  linen  fabric  decorated  with  large  and  elaborate 
ornamental  patterns.  It  takes  its  name  from  the  city  of  Damascus, 
which  was  once  famous  for  its  fine  silk  fabrics.  Originally  the  name 
was  applied  only  to  silk  fabrics.  The  finest  grades  of  damask  are 
made  of  linen  and  the  lower  grades  of  cotton.  Cotton  damasks  are 
made  from  a  good  grade  of  cotton,  1-1/16  to  1%  in.  in  staple,  with 
medium  and  high-count  yarns,  and  are  woven  with  a  satin  or  Jacquard 
weave.  They  are  bleached,  well  starched  and  calendered.  Damasks 
are  used  for  table  covers,  napkins,  towels,  etc. 

f  Denim  A  strong,  heavy,  washable  fabric.  It  is  made  from  medium 
l/|  or  low-grade  American  cotton,  %  to  1-1/16  in.  in  staple,  with  single 
low-count  yarns — for  example,  9's  warp  and  16's  filling — and  is  woven 
with  a  twill  weave.  Usually  it  is  yarn-dyed  blue  or  brown  in  the 
warp  with  a  white  filling,  but  sometimes  it  is  piece-dyed.  A  familiar 
denim  construction  is  60  x  40.  Denim  is  finished  with  a  heavy  size 
and  calendering.  Used  for  workmen's  overalls  and  outing  skirts. 


Dictionary  of  Cotton  Goods  59 

Diaper  Cloth  A  soft,  light,  absorbent  fabric,  made  from  a  good 
grade  of  cotton  with  a  medium-count  yarn  in  the  warp  and  a  soft, 
coarse  yarn  in  the  filling.  A  typical  example  would  contain  30's  warp 
and  14's  filling.  It  is  woven  in  the  gray  with  a  plain  or  twill  weave, 
bleached,  and  finished  so  as  to  make  it  absorbent  and  antiseptic.  It 
is  used  for  towels  and  children's  garments. 

Dimity  A  light,  sheer,  washable  white  or  printed  fabric  with  fine 
cords  running  warp-wise.  Except  for  the  cords  it  is  similar  to  lawn, 
batiste  or  muslin.  The  cord  effect  is  obtained  either  by  using  two  or 
more  warp  threads  together,  or  by  using  coarser  warp  threads  at 
intervals  with  the  regular  warp  threads.  It  is  made  from  Allen, 
Peeler  or  Sea  Island  cotton,  iy2  to  2  in.  in  staple,  and  with  high-count 
single  yarns,  such  as  80's  warp  and  100's  filling.  The  construction 
runs  from  about  56  x  52  to  120  x  120.  It  is  woven  with  a  plain 
weave  and  is  subsequently  bleached,  printed  with  figured  stripes  in 
the  direction  of  the  warp,  or  dyed  in  pastel  shades.  Sometimes  it  is 
bleached  in  the  yarn.  It  is  finished  with  a  light  starching  and 
pressing.  Dimity  is  used  chiefly  as  a  dress  fabric. 
Domet  A  light  fabric  similar  to  flannel,  napped  on  both  sides.  It 
is  made  of  medium  American  cotton  about  1-1/16  in.  in  staple,  with  20's 
to  26's  warp  and  14's  to  16's  filling.  The  filling  yarn  is  slack-twisted  to 
permit  of  napping.  It  is  dyed  in  the  yarn  or  the  raw  stock,  and  comes 
either  in  bright  solid  colors  or  with  warp-wise  stripes.  It  receives 
no  finish  except  the  nap.  It  is  used  for  shirts,  pajamas,  etc. 
Dotted  Swiss  A  light,  soft,  sheer  muslin,  decorated  with  dotted  pat- 
terns in  heavy  yarn.  It  is  usually  made  with  a  lappet  or  swivel  weave, 
the  ground  cloth  being  a  plain  weave  of  fairly  open  construction.  It 
is  woven  from  combed  yarns,  counting  as  high  as  90's  warp,  spun 
from  long-staple  American  cotton.  Typical  constructions  are  80  x  64 
and  74  x  60.  It  is  bleached  in  the  piece  and  usually  finished  white, 
although  sometimes  it  is  printed  or  dyed.  It  is  used  for  summer 
dresses,  waists  and  curtains. 

Drill  A  strong,  medium-weight  twilled  fabric.  It  is  made  from  short 
staple,  low-grade  American  cotton,  with  coarse  yarns,  counting  from 
10's  to  20's.  Considering  the  size  of  the  yarns,  it  is  of-  close  construc- 
tion, such  as  66  x  48.  It  is  dyed  in  the  piece  or  woven  with  dyed  warp 
and  white  filling,  and  finished  by  brushing,  sizing  and  pressing.  It  is 
used  chiefly  for  working  trousers. 

Duck  A  heavy,  stiff  fabric  of  close  texture,  made  of  medium  or  low- 
grade  American  cotton,  about  1  in.  in  staple,  with  coarse,  hard-twist, 


f60  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

two-ply  yarns  of  low  count.  The  average  count  of  duck  yarns  is  about 
10's.  Duck  is  generally  finished  white,  but  is  sometimes  made  with 
colored  stripes.  It  is  used  for  awnings,  tents  and  sails,  and  the  lighter 
weights  for  summer  clothes. 

Eolienne  A  fine  lustrous  fabric  with  a  corded  effect  running  weft- 
wise.  It  is  usually  made  with  a  raw  silk  warp  and  a  cotton  or  worsted 
filling.  The  filling  is  made  from  good  American  cotton,  about  1*4  in. 
in  staple,  with  2-ply  yarns,  counting  from  40's  to  60's.  As  the  silk 
warp  threads  are  comparatively  fine,  the  fabric  contains  many  more 
warp  threads  than  filling  threads,  124x56  being  a  typical  construction. 
It  is  woven  in  the  gray  with  a  plain  weave,  and  is  subsequently  boiled, 
"bleached  and  dyed.  Sometimes  it  is  cross-dyed  with  different  colors 
<  in  the  warp  and  filling.  It  receives  no  finish  except  pressing. 
Eolienne  is  used  for  dresses. 

Eponge  A  soft,  spongy  cloth,  made  with  novelty  yarns  of  very  coarse 
V  sizes,  and  containing  a  very  small  number  of  ends  and  picks  per  inch. 
Sometimes  it  is  made  with  plain  warp  and  novelty  yarn  filling  and 
sometimes  with  novelty  yarn  warp  and  plain  filling.  It  is  usually 
woven  in  the  gray  and  subsequently  bleached  and  dyed.  Sometimes  it 
is  made  from  bleached  or  dyed  yarns.  Generally  it  is  made  with  a 
plain  weave,  but  fancy  weaves  are  often  used.  Because  of  the  coarse 
yarn  sizes  the  construction  is  very  low,  such  as  16x17.  It  receives 
no  finishing.  Eponge  is  used  for  dress  material,  trimming  and  drapery. 
Some  varieties  of  eponge  are  known  as  ratine  (q.v.) .  See  NOVELTY 
YARN  FABRICS. 

E famine  A  thin,  crisp,  slightly  lustrous  fabric  of  open  texture.  It 
is  made  from  good  American  cotton,  about  1-1/16  in.  in  staple,  with 
hard-twisted  yarns  of  coarse  sizes,  such  as  10's.  The  construction 
is  low,  a  typical  construction  being  about  26x28.  It  is  plain  woven, 
usually  in  the  gray,  and  subsequently  bleached  and  dyed.  It  is  finished 
by  being  fairly  well  sized  and  then  calendered.  Etamine  is  used  for 
summer  dresses  and  drapery. 

Flannelette  A  narrow,  lightweight,  printed  fabric,  napped  on  both 
sides.  It  comes  in  a  variety  of  qualities,  and  may  be  made  from  low- 
grade,  medium  or  good  American  cotton,  from  %  to  1V8  in.  in  staple, 
with  single  yarns  counting  from  14's  to  30's  warp  and  filling.  The 
filling  is  slack-twisted  to  permit  of  napping.  Usually  it  is  woven  in 
the  gray,  and  bleached  and  printed  in  the  piece.  Sometimes  it  is 
made  with  stripes  woven  from  colored  yarns  dyed  in  the  raw  stock. 
It  is  plain  woven,  with  a  construction  generally  containing  a  relatively 


Dictionary  of  Cotton  Goods  61 

large  proportion  of  ends  to  the  square  inch,  such  as  88x64.  It  is  usecl 
for  wrappers,  kimonos,  nightdresses,  etc. 

Galatea  A  printed  sateen.  It  is  made  from  medium  American  cot- 
ton, about  1  in.  in  staple,  with  yarns  averaging  about  25's  warp  and*. 
filling.  As  it  is  a  satin  weave,  the  construction  usually  shows  many 
more  ends  than  picks  to  the  square  inch,  or  vice  versa — such  as  124x56 
or  72x120.  It  is  woven  in  the  gray,  printed  in  plain  colors  or  with 
figured,  dotted  or  striped  designs,  and  given  a  light  starch  finish.  It 
is  used  for  children's  dresses,  outing  suits,  shirtwaists,  etc. 

Gauze  A  name  for  a  variety  of  fabrics  made  with  a  leno  weave,  or 
with  an  imitation  of  this  weave,  known  as  an  imitation  gauze  or  mock 
leno.  The  nature  of  a  gauze  or  leno  weave  has  been  explained  in  a 
previous  chapter.  The  imitation  gauze  or  mock  leno  weave  is  achieved 
by  using  sets  of  three  or  more  warp  threads  and  sets  of  three  or  more 
filling  threads,  with  open  spaces  between  each  set.  The  sets  of  warp 
threads  interlace  with  the  sets  of  filling  threads,  producing  the  effect 
of  a  leno  weave.  Both  the  leno  and  the  mock  leno  weaves  are  used 
to  produce  plain  gauze  fabrics,  or  to  produce  fancy  effects  in  combina- 
tion with  a  plain  weave.  An  example  of  the  latter  is  a  lace  cloth. 
Gauze  fabrics  are  used  for  dresses,  curtains,  aprons,  shirts,  canvas 
cloths,  hammocks,  laundry  bags,  etc.  See  SCRIM. 

Gingham  A  light,  durable,  staple,  wash  fabric,  produced  in  solid 
colors  or  in  checks,  plaids  or  stripes.  The  common  gingham  is  always 
made  with  a  plain  weave  from  dyed  yarns  and  conies  in  many  grades. 
Usually  it  is  made  from  good  American  cotton,  as  high  as  1-3/16  in. 
in  staple,  with  yarns  counting  26's  to  40's  warp  and  filling.  The 
construction  varies  from  about  50x44  to  76x60.  After  coming  from 
the  loom  it  is  sprinkled,  well  sized  with  starch,  dried,  stretched  and 
pressed  between  hot  calender  rollers.  It  is  used  for  women's  and 
children's  dresses,  aprons,  etc.  Apron  checks  is  a  name  applied  to 
a  common  gingham  made  in  small  white  and  colored  checks.  Zephyr 
gingham  is  a  fine  dress  gingham  made  from  good  cotton,  running 
1%  to  IMj  in.  in  staple,  with  combed  yarns  counting  40's  to  60's 
warp  and  filling.  It  is  yarn  dyed,  plain  woven,  and  finished  like  the 
common  gingham.  Madras  gingham  is  a  very  fine  shirting  gingham 
made  from  good  grade  cotton,  l1/^  to  1%  in.  in  staple,  with  yarns  count- 
ing from  50's  to  60's  warp  and  filling.  It  is  made  either  with  a 
plain  weave  or  in  fancy  effects  obtained  by  combining  a  plain  weave 
with  a  jacquard  or  leno  weave.  It  is  finished  like  other  ginghams. 

Hickory  Stripes     A  strong,  durable,  lightweight  fabric,  similar  to 


62  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

ticking,  but  more  open  in  texture  and  softer  in  finish.  It  is  made 
from  medium-grade  American  cotton,  about  1  in.  in  staple,  with 
coarse-count  single  yarns,  about  14's  to  16's  warp  and  filling.  It  is 
woven  in  a  twill  weave  with  blue  and  white  or  brown  and  white 
warp  stripes  and  white  filling.  The  colored  yarns  are  sometimes  spun 
from  dyed  stock.  It  is  finished  by  shearing,  sizing  and  calendering. 
It  is  used  for  working  shirts  and  trousers. 

Huckaback  or  Hack  A  soft,  absorbent  cloth  used  for  towels.  It 
is  made  of  good  American  cotton,  about  1-1/16  in.  in  staple,  with 
soft  twisted  yarns,  counting  about  14's  warp  and  10's  filling.  It  is 
also  made  of  linen  and  cotton  or  of  all  linen.  The  weave  is  plain,  with 
long  floats  of  yarn.  A  typical  construction  would  be  50x44.  Hucka- 
back is  either  plain  white  or  has  striped  borders  made  with  alternate 
stripes  of  colored  and  white  filling. 

Indian  Dimity  A  fine  dimity  usually  made  from  Sea  Island  cotton, 
about  ll/2  in.  in  staple,  with  combed  yarns  counting  about  80's  warp 
and  100's  filling.  It  is  used  for  summer  dresses.  See  DIMITY. 
Indigo  Print  A  staple  printed  cloth,  distinguished  from  other  stand- 
ard prints  by  having  a  printed  figure  on  an  indigo  blue  ground.  See 
PRINTS. 

Italian  Cloth  A  light,  strong,  lustrous  sateen.  It  is  made  of  good 
American  cotton,  1  to  1%  in.  in  staple,  with  single  yarns  averaging 
about  40's  in  the  warp  and  45's  in  the  filling.  It  is  woven  in  the 
gray  with  a  satin  weave,  and  like  all  such  cloths  it  is  of  close  con- 
struction, containing  many  more  ends  than  picks  to  the  square  inch, 
or  vice  versa.  After  coming  from  the  loom  it  is  bleached,  dyed, 
given  a  light  sizing  and  calendered  with  heated  rollers.  It  is  used 
chiefly  for  linings  and  underskirts. 

Jean  A  tough,  durable,  twilled  cloth,  usually  made  with  cotton  warp 
and  low  grade  wool  or  shoddy  filling.  The  yarns  used  in  the  warp 
are  spun  with  a  hard  twist  from  low-grade  cotton,  about  1  in.  in 
staple,  and  are  dyed  a  grayish  black.  The  average  yarn  count  is  about 
20's.  The  cloth  is  given  what  is  known  as  a  dry  finish — that  is,  it 
is  brushed,  sheared  and  pressed,  without  any  washing  or  sizing.  It 
is  used  for  working  trousers. 

Lawn  A  soft,  sheer,  lightweight  fabric  of  cotton  or  linen.  It  is 
similar  to  batiste  or  cambric.  There  are  numerous  grades  of  lawn. 
All  of  them  are  made  from  high  grade  American  cotton,  such  as 
Peeler  or  Sea  Island,  running  from  1*4  to  iy2  in.  in  staple.  It  is 
woven  with  a  plain  weave  from  gray  or  bleached  yarns  in  a  variety 


Dictionary  of  Cotton  Goods  63 

of  constructions,  ranging  from  about  56x52  to  as  high  as  120  x  120. 
The  yarn  counts  range  from  40's  to  100's  warp  and  filling.  Lawn  is 
usually  finished  white,  but  sometimes  it  is  printed  in  bright  colors 
or  tinted  in  pastel  shades.  It  is  given  a  soft  smooth  finish  by  light 
starching  and  calendering.  It  is  used  for  summer  dresses,  waists  and 
lingerie.  See  BISHOP'S  LAWN  and  VICTORIA  LAWN. 

Linon  A  very  fine,  light,  closely-woven,  slightly  lustrous  fabric.  It 
is  usually  known  as  India  linon.  It  is  made  from  Sea  Island  cotton, 
l1/^  to  1%  in.  in  staple,  with  combed  yarns  of  high  count,  such  as  90's 
warp  and  110's  filling.  It  is  woven  in  the  gray  with  a  plain  weave  and 
has  a  high  construction.  A  typical  construction  is  108x110.  After 
coming  from  the  loom  it  is  sheared,  bleached,  lightly  starched  and  well 
calendered.  As  a  rule  it  is  finished  white,  but  sometimes  it  is  dyed. 
It  is  used  for  summer  dresses  and  waists. 

Long  Cloth  A  fine,  soft,  closely  woven  white  fabric.  There  are 
many  qualities  of  long  cloth.  An  average  quality  is  made  from  good 
American  cotton,  about  1*4  in.  in  staple,  with  soft-twisted  yarns 
counting  about  50's  warp  and  60's  filling.  It  is  woven  in  the  gray 
with  a  plain  weave.  The  constructions  are  the  same  as  for  a  lawn 
or  dimity.  After  being  woven  it  is  boiled,  bleached,  given  a  light 
size  and  calendered  with  slightly  heated  rollers.  It  is  used  for  lingerie 
and  children's  wear. 

Madras  A  strong,  lightweight,  washable  cloth,  usually  show- 
ing very  narrow,  woven,  colored  warp  stripes  on  a  white  ground. 
It  is  named  after  the  city  of  Madras,  India,  whence  it  originally  came. 
Madras  is  made  in  a  variety  of  grades  from  good  American,  Egyptian 
or  Sea  Island  cotton,  averaging  about  1%  in.  in  staple,  with  single 
yarns  counting  from  26's  to  80's  warp  and  filling.  It  is  usually  woven 
with  a  plain  weave,  but  sometimes  with  a  twill  weave.  It  is  used 
chiefly  for  shirts  and  summer  dresses. 

Madras  Gingham       See  GINGHAM. 

Marquisette  A  lightweight  cloth  of  very  open  texture,  made 
of  silk,  silk  and  cotton,  or  all  cotton.  Cotton  marquisette  is  made 
from  high-grade  American,  Egyptian  or  Sea  Island  cotton,  with 
combed  2-ply  yarns  counting  60's  to  100's.  It  is  woven  in  the  gray 
with  a  gauze  or  leno  weave,  and  is  subsequently  bleached  and  dyed 
or  printed.  It  is  a  dress  fabric. 

Moire  A  watered  effect  produced  on  fabrics  in  the  finishing  process. 
Usually  it  is  obtained  by  folding  or  rolling  the  cloth  while  damp  and 


64  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber   ' 

pressing  it  in  the  folded  state  between  heated  calender  rollers.  Some- 
times engraved  rollers  are  used.  Moire  fabrics  are  used  for  linings, 
millinery,  drapery,  trimmings  and  other  purposes. 

Mull  A  light,  sheer,  very  soft  muslin.  It  takes  its  name  from  the 
Hindu  word  mat,  meaning  soft.  In  count  and  construction  mull  is 
the  same  as  lawn  (q.v.),  the  difference  being  in  the  finish.  Mull  is 
given  a  very  soft  finish  by  sizing  with  an  oily  solution.  It  is  used 
for  dresses.  There  is  also  a  starched  mull  which  is  finished  by  sizing 
with  a  stiffening  material,  and  is  used  chiefly  for  millinery  and 
curtains.  Starched  mull  is  sometimes  dyed. 

Muslin  A  name  given  to  a  great  variety  of  soft,  sheer,  lightweight, 
plain-woven  fabrics.  The  name  is  derived  from  Mosul,  a  city  in  Meso- 
potamia, once  famous  for  the  manufacture  of  fine  cotton  cloths.  The 
finer  grade  of  muslin  are  usually  known  by  other  names,  such  as 
batiste,  lawn,  linon,  mull,  nainsook,  etc.  Muslins  may  be  made  from 
cotton  varying  in  quality  from  low-grade  American  to  Sea  Island,  with 
yarns  counting  from  12's  to  100's  or  higher.  Muslin  constructions 
run  from  44x40  to  120x120.  Sometimes  it  is  made  with  woven  warp 
stripes  or  embroidered  effects.  It  is  sold  either  bleached  or  unbleached. 
Bleached  muslin  is  finished  with  a  light  sizing  and  calendering.  It 
is  used  for  dresses,  aprons,  shirts,  sheetings,  pillow  cases,  etc. 

Nainsook  A  fine  muslin,  made  either  plain  or  with  cord  stripes 
or  plaids.  It  was  originally  a  strong  Indian  muslin,  known  as  nain- 
sukh.  In  count  and  construction  it  is  the  same  as  lawn  (q.v.),  the 
difference  being  in  the  finishing  process.  It  is  produced  with  either 
an  English  or  a  French  finish,  the  former  being  soft  and  the  latter 
crisp.  It  is  used  for  lingerie,  infants'  clothes,  curtains,  etc. 
Novelty  Yarn  Fabrics  A  variety  of  fancy  fabrics  made  altogether 
or  in  part  with  novelty  yarns.  Novelty  yarns  are  produced  by 
twisting  a  number  of  single  yarns  into  one.  Many  different  effects 
are  obtained  according  to  the  kinds  of  yarns  used  and  the  manner 
in  which  they  are  twisted.  For  instance,  a  single  colored  yarn  may 
be  twisted  with  bleached  yarns  in  such  a  manner  as  to  produce  colored 
loops  or  nubs,  which  appear  as  spots  of  color  on  the  cloth.  Sometimes 
tufts  of  bleached  or  dyed  raw  cotton  are  bound  in  with  the  yarns  in 
the  twisting.  Novelty  yarn  fabrics  are  usually  woven  with  a  plain 
weave,  or  a  plain  weave  in  combination  with  other  weaves.  Many 
fancy  crepes,  voiles,  curtain  fabrics,  etc.,  are  made  with  novelty  yarn 
effects.  Plain  novelty  yarn  fabrics,  because  of  the  size  of  the  yarn, 
are  woven  with  a  very  low  construction,  such  as  16x17,  and  receive 


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WINDING  YARNS  ON  THE  WARP  BEAM 


Dictionary  of  Cotton  Goods 


no  finishing.  A  typical  example  is  an  eponge  (q.v.).  They  are  used 
for  dresses,  millinery,  drapery,  etc. 

Organdy  A  very  fine,  sheer  muslin  with  a  crisp,  transparent  finish. 
It  comes  in  many  different  qualities,  but  usually  it  is  made  from  Sea 
Island  cotton  with  combed  single  yarns  counting  from  80's  to  120's. 
It  is  woven  in  the  gray  with  a  high  construction,  such  as  88x80  or 
96x100,  and  is  bleached,  dyed  in  pastel  shades  or  printed  with  small 
figures.  It  is  finished  by  sizing  with  a  substance  such  as  albumen, 
casein  or  dextrine,  after  which  it  is  well  calendered.  The  finish  on 
domestic  organdies,  as  a  rule,  is  not  permanent.  Organdy  is  used 
for  dresses,  sashes,  neckwear,  etc. 

Osnaburg  A  coarse,  strong,  durable  cloth,  named  from  the  city  of 
Osnaburg,  in  Germany,  where  it  was  first  made.  It  comes  in  solid 
colors,  in  checks,  or  in  blue  and  white  or  brown  and  white  warp  stripes. 
It  is  made  from  low-grade  American  cotton,  %  in.  or  less  in  staple, 
with  single-ply  yarns  counting  14's  to  20's  warp  and  filling.  It  is 
woven  with  a  plain  weave  from  dyed  yarns,  and  receives  no  finishing. 
An  average  construction  would  be  about  52x46,  which  is  close  con- 
sidering the  coarseness  of  the  yarns.  It  is  used  for  working  clothes. 
Percale  A  plain-woven,  lightweight  cloth  of  close  texture,  with  a 
dull  finish.  It  is  of  French  origin  and  is  sometimes  known  as  French 
cambric.  It  is  made  from  good  American  cotton,  1  to  1-1/16  in.  in 
staple,  with  single  yarns,  counting  about  30's  on  the  average.  The 
standard  percale  construction  is  64x60.  It  is  woven  in  the  gray  and 
subsequently  bleached  and  printed  in  fast  colors  on  one  side.  Some- 
times it  is  sold  in  the  bleached  state.  It  is  finished  with  a  light 
starching  and  tentering.  Printed  percale  is  used  chiefly  for  dresses 
and  shirts,  and  bleached  percale  for  handkerchiefs  and  aprons. 

Percaline  A  light  fine  fabric  with  a  lustrous  moire  finish.  It  is 
made  from  good  American  cotton,  1  to  1-1/16  in.  in  staple,  with 
single  yarns  counting  30's  to  40's  warp  and  filling.  It  is  plain  woven 
in  the  gray  with  a  pretty  high  construction,  such  as  84x84,  and  is 
subsequently  bleached  and  dyed  in  solid  colors,  well  sized  and  calen- 
dered by  the  moire  process.  Percaline  is  used  chiefly  for  linings. 

Pique  A  strong,  heavy  fabric  woven  in  cross-ribbed  or  figured 
effects.  Pique  is  made  with  a  double-cloth  weave,  and  has  two  sets 
of  warps,  one  of  which  binds  the  back  and  face  together.  The  ribs 
are  usually  formed  with  filling  yarns  of  coarser  count  than  the  regular 
filling  yarns.  It  is  made  as  a  rule  from  good  grade  American  cotton, 
about  1%  in.  in  staple,  with  yarns  averaging  about  30's.  It  is  gen- 


66  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

eraily  finished  white.  It  is  used  for  skirts,  men's  dress  waistcoats, 
neckties,  shirtfronts,  bedspreads,  etc. 

/  Poplin  A  fabric  characterized  by  fine  weft-wise  ribs.  Originally  it 
was  made  with  a  silk  warp  and  a  heavier  woolen  filling,  which  created 
the  ribbed  effect.  In  cotton  poplins  the  same  effect  is  created  by 
using  a  coarser  yarn  in  the  filling  than  in  the  warp.  It  is  made,  as 
a  rule,  from  good  grade  American  or  Sea  Island  cotton,  1^4  to  l1/^ 
in.  in  staple,  with  2-ply  yarns  counting  from  40's  to  60's  warp  and 
filling.  It  is  woven  in  the  gray  with  a  plain  weave.  Subsequently 
it  is  bleached,  and  frequently  mercerized,  in  the  piece.  Sometimes 
it  is  bleached  or  mercerized  in  the  yarn.  The  construction  shows  a 
much  higher  count  in  the  warp  than  in  the  filling,  such  as  104x48.  It 
is  a  dress  material. 

Prints  A  variety  of  staple  plain-woven  fabrics,  printed  with  simple 
patterns  on  a  white  or  light-colored  ground.  They  are  made  from 

v  middling  American  cotton,  about  1  in.  in  staple,  with  yarns  averaging 
about  28's  warp  and  36's  filling.  Regular  print  cloth  constructions 
run  from  44x40  to  80x80,  the  standard  constructions  being  64x60 
and  64x64.  They  are  used  mostly  for  house  dresses,  slips  and  the 
like. 

Ratine  A  name  applied  to  a  variety  of  fancy  fabrics,  some  of  which 
are  identical  with  eponge  (q.v.),  and  some  of  which  are  practically 
identical  with  terry  cloth  (q.v.).  The  name  describes  an  effect  rather 
than  a  fabric. 

Sateen  or  Satine  A  strong,  lustrous  fabric,  usually  piece-dyed,  but 
sometimes  printed.  It  is  made  usually  from  good  American  or  Egyp- 
tian cotton,  as  high  as  1^  in.  in  staple,  with  yarns  counting  from 
40's  to  80's,  although  some  coarse  sateens  are  made  with  yarns 
counting  as  low  as  14's.  It  is  woven  with  a  satin  weave,  either  warp- 
faced  or  filling-faced.  The  best  qualities  are  filling-faced.  Typical 
constructions  are  64x112  and  72x120.  Sateens  are  woven  in  the  gray, 
sized  with  starch  or  an  oily  solution,  according  to  whether  they  have 
a  stiff  or  a  soft  finish,  and  calendered.  They  are  used  chiefly  for 
linings  and  corset  covers,  and  the  coarser  grades  for  furniture  and 
mattress  coverings. 
Scrim  A  lightweight  cloth  of  very  open  texture,  resembling  a  net. 

%/  It  is  made  in  a  variety  of  qualities,  from  low-grade,  medium  or  good 
American  cotton,  %  to  IV±  in.  in  staple,  with  2-ply  yarns  counting 
about  10's  to  40's.  It  is  woven  with  a  gauze  or  leno  weave,  usually 
in  bright  stripe  and  plaid  effects,  and  receives  no  finish  except  hot 


Dictionary  of  Cotton  Goods  67 

pressing.  It  is  used  chiefly  for  curtains  and  drapery,  and  the  lower 
grades  for  hammocks  and  laundry  bags.  See  GAUZE. 

Seersucker  or  Crinkle  Cloth  A  lightweight,  plain-woven  wash 
fabric  characterized  by  crinkled  warp  stripes.  It  is  made  from  good 
American  cotton,  about  1  in.  in  staple,  with  single  yarns  counting 
about  30's  warp  and  filling.  The  crinkled  stripe  effect  is  produced 
by  giving  a  slack  tension  to  the  warp  threads  forming  the  stripes, 
so  that  they  become  crinkled  in  the  weaving.  Sometimes  this  effect 
is  produced  by  mercerization.  Seersucker  is  woven  from  dyed  yarns 
and  given  a  gingham  finish.  Ginghams  with  seersucker  stripes  are 
known  as  seersucker  ginghams.  It  is  used  for  dresses,  waists, 
rompers,  etc. 

Shade  Cloth  A  plain-woven  white  or  green  cloth  with  a  smooth, 
firm,  lustrous  finish.  It  is  made  in  many  qualities,  but  on  the  average 
it  is  made  from  good,  medium-staple  American  cotton  in  the  regular 
print  cloth  constructions.  It  is  woven  in  the  gray,  piece-bleached  and 
dyed,  and  finished  by  being  well  sized  with  a  mixture  of  oil  and  starch, 
dried,  dampened  and  calendered.  It  is  used  for  window  shades. 

Sheeting  A  lightweight,  plain-woven  fabric,  sold  either  bleached 
or  unbleached.  It  is  made  from  medium  to  good  American  cotton, 
with  yarns  counting  about  18's  to  40's  warp  and  filling.  It  is  woven 
in  the  gray  and  receives  no  finishing.  Regular  sheeting  constructions 
run  from  44x40  to  56x60.  The  standard  construction  is  48x48. 
Silesia  A  strong  lightweight  fabric  with  a  highly  lustrous  finish. 
It  is  made  from  good  American  cotton,  about  IVs  in.  in  staple,  with 
yarns  counting  about  30's  to  40's  warp  and  filling.  It  is  woven  in 
a  twill  weave  with  a  high  construction,  such  as  90x72,  and  is  piece- 
dyed  in  dark  colors  and  given  a  schreiner  finish.  Used  for  linings. 
Terry  Cloth  or  Turkish  Towelling  A  soft  fabric  with  small  loops 
of  uncut  pile  on  one  or  both  sides.  It  is  made,  as  a  rule,  from  a  fairly 
good  grade  of  American  cotton,  about  1  in.  in  staple,  with  2-ply  yarns 
counting  20's  to  30's  in  the  warp  and  single  yarns  counting  20's  to 
30's  in  the  filling.  It  is  woven  with  a  variation  of  the  twill  weave, 
known  as  the  terry  motion  (from  the  French  tirer,  meaning  to  draw 
or  pull).  Two  sets  of  warp  threads  are  used,  one  of  which  is  very 
slack.  As  the  filling  threads  are  beaten  up  (pushed  together)  in  the 
weaving  they  draw  the  slack  warp  threads  into  loops.  Sometimes  the 
same  result  is  obtained  by  inserting  wires  weft-wise  in  the  cloth, 
over  which  the  warp  yarns  pass  in  the  weaving,  leaving  loops  when 
the  wires  are  withdrawn.  Terry  cloth  is  usually  woven  in  the  gray 


68  Cotton,  the  Universal  Fiber 

and  subsequently  bleached,  dyed  or  printed.  It  is  used  chiefly  for 
towels  and  bathrobes.  Many  dress  fabrics  made  on  the  terry  prin- 
ciple are  sold  under  other  names,  such  as  eponge  or  ratine  (q.v.). 

Ticking  A  strong,  stiff,  heavy,  twilled  fabric.  It  is  made  from 
I  fairly  good  American  cotton,  %  to  \%  in.  in  staple,  with  single  yarns 
counting  about  14's  to  22's  warp  and  filling,  the  warp  yarns  being 
of  coarser  count  than  the  filling.  The  weave  is  a  warp-face  twill. 
It  is  woven  with  yarn-dyed  warp  stripes  and  white  filling.  Frequently 
the  colored  yarns  are  spun  from  dyed  raw  stock.  Ticking  is  finished 
by  being  brushed,  sheared,  sized  and  calendered.  It  is  used  for 
mattress,  pillow  and  bolster  coverings. 

,  Velveteen  A  pile  fabric  with  a  very  short  pile.  It  is  made  from 
good  American,  Egyptian  or  Sea  Island  cotton,  1%  to  1%  in.  in  staple, 
with  single  or  2-ply  yarns  counting  from  30's  to  80's  warp  and  filling. 
It  is  woven  in  either  a  plain  or  a  twill  weave,  with  extra  filling  threads 
which  form  floats  on  the  surface  of  the  cloth.  These  floats  are  sub- 
sequently cut  with  a  knife,  making  the  pile.  The  construction  shows 
a  very  high  count  of  picks  to  the  square  inch,  running  from  about 
50x156  to  76x600.  Velveteen  may  be  dyed  either  in  the  yarn  or  the 
piece,  or  printed  or  embossed.  It  is  used  chiefly  for  dresses,  trim- 
ming and  upholstery. 

Victoria  Lawn  A  heavy,  closely  woven  English  lawn,  similar  to 
linon  (q.v.).  It  is  made  from  high-grade  American  or  Sea  Island 
cotton,  1%  to  1%  in.  in  staple,  with  yarns  counting  about  80's  warp 
and  110's  filling,  and  a  high  construction,  such  as  120x120.  It  is 
finished  white  or  printed,  lightly  starched  and  calendered.  It  is  used 
for  dresses,  aprons  and  lingerie. 

Voile  A  sheer,  lightweight,  plain-woven  fabric.  It  is  made  from 
good  American  cotton,  1%  in.  to  l1/^  in.  or  more  in  staple,  with  hard- 
spun  single  or  2-ply  yarns,  counting  about  50's  to  60's.  Voile  yarns 
are  given  a  high  twist  and  are  frequently  gassed.  Domestic  voiles  are 
seldom  made  from  yarns  counting  higher  than  60's,  but  some  imported 
voiles  are  made  from  2-ply  yarns  counting  as  high  as  140's.  Domestic 
voile  constructions  rarely  run  higher  than  64x64,  the  standard  con- 
struction being  60x56.  Voile  may  be  dyed  in  the  yarn  or  the  piece, 
printed  or  mercerized.  Fancy  voiles  are  made  in  a  variety  of  woven 
and  printed  patterns.  The  finish  depends  upon  whether  the  cloth  is 
yarn-  or  piece-dyed,  printed,  silk-striped,  etc.  Voile  is  a  dress  fabric. 
Zephyr  Gingham  See  GINGHAM. 


1  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
rhis  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


WTf-S 

ES 


OCT  1$  J947 


3May54BHX 


JAN  9    1985 


LD  21-100m-12,'46(A2012sie)4120 


25Mar'60GC 
REC'D  LD 

MAR  15  i960 


DEC  27  1967 
RECEIVEC 

DEC  2S'67  -4 


ttcocmc 


PM 


11 

)EfT         SEP  1  1  '/« 


X 


TS 
\575 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


